12/18/2012

First off, the MFM meme that we now need some nation conversation on guns is preposterous. Silly. This conversation has been going on for decades, and the Left and MFM lost. They want it now to capitalize on the raw emotion following the tragedy at Sandy Hook.

There is a remarkable amount of ignorance coming from the MFM about guns. They are yammering on as though the assault weapons ban would have affected this incident. It would not, the weapons involved were not subject to the assault weapons ban. They conflate semi automatic weapons with assault weapons, or use assault style weapons to conflate and confuse appearance for performance.

Why do people who favor gun-control call people who disagree with them murderers or accomplices to murder? Is that constructive?

Would any of the various proposals have actually prevented the tragedy that is the supposed reason for them?

When you say you hope that this event will finally change the debate, do you really mean that you hope you can use emotionalism and blood-libel-bullying to get your way on political issues that were losers in the past?

If you’re a media member or politician, do you have armed security? Do you have a permit for a gun yourself? (I’m asking you Dianne Feinstein!) If so, what makes your life more valuable than other people’s?

Do you know the difference between an automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon? Do your public statements reflect that difference?

Chuck Todd: … having this discussion in Washington. The question is, does it last after the New Year? It may last this week before Christmas.

Guest: There is clear public opinion … public opinion is behind it. People are behind it. This is the right moment…

CT: There’s public opinion in general and there’s public opinion in the Republican congressional districts. Which is a different America. Anyway, thank you all. Thank you for the short … there… we have a busy morning.

I think — this time — the national conversation on guns is going to bypass the usual suspects on the right. Glenn Reynolds and his ilk can try diversionary tactics all they like (“Look! Fast and Furious!” “Look how the mainstream media blah blah blah!”), but unless they actually have something concrete to propose, their voices will just go into the wind.

Some legislation will be passed. Let’s hope it is enough to make a difference.

You are absolutely correct; the MFM lost. Time to realize it’s just a ridiculous idea to protect schools. We should let kids carry. Just think how many holes would be in Lanza if those first graders had all been packing heat.

I, for one, am looking forward to the next massacre, more than likely in just a few short weeks; I just love sequels. I just hope I have enough popcorn on hand for all the funerals…

They yammering on as though the assault weapons ban would have effected this incident. It would not, the weapons involved were not subject to the assault weapons ban.

Weren’t they? I have no idea, but I’m sort of surprised.

They conflate semi automatic weapons with assault weapons,

That’s not hard to do, since many semi-automatics are “assault weapons”. The term “assault weapon” means simply “the weapons that were banned from 1994-2004″.

or use assault style weapons to conflate and confuse appearance for performance

“Assault weapon” and “assault style weapon” are the same thing; “assault style” is merely more honest. What they’re actually doing, and you — to my surprise — seem to be doing as well, is conflating “assault weapon”, which is a BS term, with “assault rifle”, which is a real term with an actual definition, and isn’t at all a problem in the USA.

Jean harlott is another in a long line of gender bending banned trolls. This one was banned as far back as 2009, under the names Ed from PA and Tom thumb, and has showed back up under the names positive k, and now Jean harlott. Everybody wave hello, and goodbye.

Assault rifles were first proposed for banning because they looked “ugly.” That is why California banned a single-shot survival shotgun as an “assault rifle.” Now, they use the “big magazines” are more deadly. Nonsense, a big magazine may look more deadly buut, in firing a semi-automatic rifle, it makes more sense to use smaller, lighter magazines. Heavy magazines make accurate targeting difficult. The shooter may fire more rounds but end up with fewer hits. Considering the time sequences involved in these shootings – from the time the shooter opens fire until the police actually respond with force – a crazy armed with a 1789 model smoothbore musket could have generated 30 well-aimed shots. The real problem is how can we identify, before they act, these people and have them treated or committed.

Time to realize it’s just a ridiculous idea to protect schools. We should let kids carry.

I’ve seen this obnoxious argument repeated in a few places.

Instead of taking this seriously, the idea of allowing concealed carry is dismissed and compared with letting children concealed carry.

Think outside the box, JEA.

Gun control laws would not have prevented the massacre. The psycho stole weapons instead of buying them. No realistic gun law is going to prevent that. Laws against murder and theft did not stop the killer, either. He choose a target that was defenseless, and it’s getting really clear that psychos are drawn to gun free zones as this keeps happening.

Yet when the adults talk about eliminating gun free zones, the notion is dismissed without serious thought.

The left is acting like this is an opportunity. Like they can’t let a crisis go to waste. That’s ghoulish. If you are serious about preventing another mass shooting, you should be willing to be more flexible and willing to have a serious discussion without dismissing ideas that don’t lead to your pre ordained goal of gun control.

There were heroes throwing themselves in harms way to try to protect children. There are more people in schools across the country who would do the same. They should be allowed to arm themselves so that their efforts aren’t hopeless, but more importantly, so the next psycho is deterred.

How many bad guys have been deterred because their targets might have been armed? Likely many. Gun controlled places like England are the most violent places in the world.

This is an adult solution to a fact: Lawless bad guys in America will always have access to dangerous objects including guns.

Alternative ‘solutions’ to this issue that don’t take into account that guns can’t be eliminated and bad guys don’t obey laws. They seem to rely on a fantasy of eventually banning all guns.

That’s the most annoying part of the debate. I see plenty of comments out there from people who talk about eventually banning all guns and plenty more about banning all but revolvers and hunting weapons. That’s clearly what’s wanted. Yet if a gun rights advocate notes that is the goal, they are scoffed at as paranoid, which is dishonest. It’s scoffed at by those who say we should have nationwide gun registration and ‘retesting’ of gun owners. Obviously it would be helpful to a gun ban to first have a registration of guns. Er… at least the guns of law abiding people.

Furthermore, imagine what it would take to implement a nation wide gun confiscation. Heavily armed and armored police would have to kick down a lot of doors. Some Americans who see guns as a basic right enshrined for centuries would resist. This ‘solution’ would be more gruesome than the tragedy that led to the initial ‘we need a discussion’. And if gun control advocates aren’t willing to admit this is their end game, then their entire argument falls apart easily… the killer did not buy his weapon. He stole it from someone who would have passed any test.

We live in a world where the government cannot control everything, and we should crowdsource the solution with broader concealed carry.

Dear sweet God above, is this Kman stalker completely unaware of his own bizarre penchant for psychological projection?

“…Glenn Reynolds and his ilk can try diversionary tactics …”

Ilk? Really?

Several things. Somebody’s jealous of Professor Reynolds, clearly. And “diversionary”? How Kman said that without being struck by lightning is beyond me.

What happened on Friday was horrible. The killer’s mother was an idiot for keeping firearms around if (and that’s a big if) she knew he might be dangerous. And I grieve for the parents. It’s beyond horrible.

But how could any form of gun control, short of confiscation (and ask the UK how that is going), have prevented a madman for this course?

Simple fact, whether or not an alphabetist like Kman can accept it or not: freedom times security equals a constant (I think Larry Niven said it first, but who knows—I’m sure good old Sammy will weigh in on that). The more freedom, the less security. The more security, the less freedom.

Fact is, alcohol kills how many people per year? And is a matter of personal choice? And is not necessary? And is designed for just one thing? Yet we know how well Prohibition went. And the above are the precise arguments that people use against guns: fatality, silly choice, not necessary, designed for one purpose.

You want a safer world? Outlaw private vehicles. Less pollution, less carbon footprint (if you are into that kind of thing), and an immediate drop in unnecessary deaths (including children) of how many people? Over 32,000 people folks. Each and every year. Whoops.

I am well aware that we should never waste a crisis (who said that, and why?). But the fact is, legislation made is haste is never, ever any good. But it does serve political purposes. And there are few more things more reprehensible than using a tragedy involving children to advance a political agenda.

I would much rather people start talking about mental health issues.

But the most important thing to remember is that people who are willing to break the law…are kinda sorta willing to break the law. Germany had a school shooting. They toughed up their guns laws. Guess what? Another school shooting.

So what to do? There are all kinds of ways to meet in the middle. But compromise means exactly that. Having talking heads talk about fully automatic weapons (illegal since the early 1930s), and issuing death threats against the NRA is, um, not helpful. And the latter insanity is ironic, to say the least.

As for the quote about crises? Here is something everyone should watch, and think about right now:

I am growing a beard and wearing a fedora driving a Nissan Altima. Is that enough?

Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/18/2012

Oh yeah, they should have locked you up years ago. 😉

It’s unrealistic to think we would identify all crazies in time. We need to be sure that they are crazy and that their craziness is dangerous. With Loughner, there was plenty of sufficient indication, in my opinion. I’ve seen people on twitter obsess over sending violent threats to people and their families while insisting on theories that are so insane it’s hard to understand the mind that believes them. If those tweets were in earnest, of course the author should be institutionalized.

Since laws against murder don’t work, why not just repeal them too? Talk about idiotic arguments…

Comment by JEA (fb1111) — 12/18/2012

Laws against murder provide us with a mechanism for punishment and also are of some deterrent value against those who aren’t totally crazy.

I don’t think your comment is even slightly responsive to my argument.

A killer who steals guns and murders a bunch of children would not have been stopped by another gun law. He didn’t even purchase the gun, and as the rest of my comment explained, we’re going to be in a country full of guns that bad guys will have some access to unless you take measures so draconian that they are more tragic than even the school shooting.

Thus, gun control measures are actually making things more dangerous by disenfranchising the law abiding people who often try to stop the psychos.

“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people”
“Cars kill people, too. Should we ban them?”
“Even if you toughen up gun laws, it still wouldn’t have prevented what happened in Newtown”

… and so on.

All this, of course, is just distractions from “the conversation”, rather than contributions to it. Because what Simon and others like him would prefer… is to do nothing at all.

I don’t even dispute some of his points. I just think they’re irrelevant. We can do better at gun control. We can make sure that the “well-regulated militia” of the Second Amendment is indeed well-regulated.

I know many gun owners and hobbyists who are coming out of the woodwork and speaking up in ways that would make the NRA blanche. There is simply no need to have many of the types of weapons that are out there and easily available. No, it won’t guarantee an end to mass killings any more than putting sudafed behind the counter will put an end to all meth labs.

But it helps. There are a number of things that can help. And anyone who can’t think of anything to do to help prevent future massacres needs to stand aside, shut up, and let the grown-ups do the talking.

Why this sudden concern about these CT murders? We know who did them. We know a lot about him – how he had serious mental issues. What about the hundreds of murderers walking our city streets right now? What about the victims, whose names are not read by the president?

Pose as though this is a serious issue that demands discussion. When an opportunity for discussion presents itself, thoughtlessly dismiss what you don’t agree with (or were too lazy to understand) in a childish manner.

You can’t play ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ when the other party is actually presenting stronger reasons why policy should go in the opposite direction of what you want.

We need more gun owners, better education on guns (especially marksmanship and gun safety classes in schools), and fewer of these extremely dangerous gun free zones that attract psychos. This keeps happening.

Kmart ignores that all of the guns in this incident were legal under the very restrictive CT laws, and would not have been effected by the assault weapons ban previously in place. So, as Ms Doubtfire’s baseline goes, that is just a starting point to produce legislation that would further limit our Constitutional Rights. Heller and Moore be damned.

So the left, not letting a crisis go to waste, wants to have a “discussion” about even more restrictive gun laws. Of course, the left jumps on any opportunity to try to limit the ownership of firearms from law abiding citizens.

But, I, for one, am willing to have that conversation. So…………..

when there is not one gangbanger in New York, Chicago or L.A., or any other city in the U.S., still in possession of an illegal weapon, we’ll talk.

when the system of posting gun “free” signs in public places like schools and theaters is ended, making me nothing more than an opportune target for someone who ignores those rules, we’ll talk.

when courts put those who try to murder others with a gun in jail and throw away the key, and not let them out to walk our public streets, like the guy who shot President Reagan, we’ll talk.

when our own government is held responsible for the forced sale of guns to Mexican gun runners, guns that have been identified in at least 11 crimes in the U.S., we’ll talk.

when the President of the United States no longer requires Secret Service protection for fear he will be shot, we’ll talk.

when the Congress shows me that the laws they pass are effective against gun crimes, drunk driving, drug dealing, rape, home invasion, robbery and assault, we’ll talk.

when Congress starts honoring the U.S. Constitution, that they swear to uphold, we’ll talk.

Until then, I maintain my right to protect myself, and my family/community against those things that threaten not only my safety, but my life, and to protect myself against an ever oppressive government.

They are not “very restrictive” laws, when you consider the whole panoply of laws that could be imposed, with only slight inconvenience to the gun owner, if we as a nation simply had the balls to do it.

Words mean things, but words written over 200 years ago mean what they meant when they were written, not what you attribute to them now.

The word “regulate” or “regulation” appears eight times in the Constitution, and each time, it doesn’t make sense if you make it into “equipped” (e.g. “Congress shall have the power.. to regulate commerce….”)

Are you telling me that word suddenly changes meaning when it gets to the Bill of Rights? Are there any other times — in the Constitution or in other writings of the era — where “regulate” is synonymous with “equip”?

You’re one of the people who can’t be expected to be serious about the subject.

Laws against murder provide us with a mechanism for punishment and also are of some deterrent value against those who aren’t totally crazy.

They are of tremendous deterrent value. Just look at Mexico. Or Syria. Or the Congo. Where there may not be any effective laws.

But they are nearly useless if someone accepts that he is going to die and/or he’s already killed somebody else, and feels certain he is going to be found out very soon, but hasn’t yet been.

A killer who steals guns and murders a bunch of children would not have been stopped by another gun law.

The gun law isn’t to deter him. It’s to disable him, or make him afraid he’ll get caught just having the weapon. New York City police use gun laws to arrest and challenge many malefactors, because the possession of guns by most people is illegal, especially on the street. (the ACLU and company doesn’t quite like that)

He didn’t even purchase the gun,

See, what would help here is the character vouch like what exists in Australia and Canada..

If Nancy Lanza had to get half a dozen or more people, at some risk to their own rights, attest to the lack of danger of her having weapons or something like that, people would have discussed with her what’s going on with her son and how guns should be handled around him. Even discussed with him. This is far far better than having some so-called expert determine who is fit to own a gun.

I suppose you could also have a rule that any “gun-free” zone where more than 50 people were present, had to have an armed security guard or two present who passed a test – like a courtroom.
(Three guards maybe – to keep an eye on each other)

The second amendment is part of the bill of rights. It does not grant regulation powers to the federal government, but rather limits the government and protects an individual right (not the right of a militia, but the right of every individual citizen). This is very basic stuff.

Your attitude that those who disagree with you should be silent is typical of your comments. I’ve been disappointed to see you repeatedly insult anyone you don’t agree with and dismiss any argument that challenges your preconceptions, usually without showing even basic understanding of the argument you’re certain should be silenced.

This is an adult conversation and you’re intruding upon it to shout and insult people.

I’d think by now you know that even without guns, people like the Speedway Bomber could just set bombs on schools to kill people.

Here again, the “it would have happened anyway” distraction.

You don’t provide any indication that you understand this argument. You just dismiss it and throw in some exclamation marks for good measure. Yes, the most violent countries in the world have severe gun control. They have governments that can heavily regulate gun ownership. Violence happens anyway. This is a powerful argument against your view because you are asking us to give up our freedom and the security you are promising isn’t even going to be yielded.

Why do you dismiss this point?

Maybe instead of insulting people and telling them to shut up and betraying ignorance of the law, you should read this post and the thread again, slowly, and challenge yourself to understand the arguments. You don’t have to agree with an argument to understand it.

This is a powerful argument against your view because you are asking us to give up our freedom and the security you are promising isn’t even going to be yielded… Why do you dismiss this point?

There are conflicting freedoms at stake. Do gun-owners have freedoms protected by the Constitution? Certainly. But so did the victims of Newtown, Aurora, etc. We’re at a tipping point, folks, and the Second Amendment isn’t the relevant clause of the Constitution.

But they are nearly useless if someone accepts that he is going to die and/or he’s already killed somebody else, and feels certain he is going to be found out very soon, but hasn’t yet been.

That’s true. What possible deterrence value is a law against someone who is on a suicide mission?

The gun law isn’t to deter him. It’s to disable him, or make him afraid he’ll get caught just having the weapon.

That’s a pretty good point, I suppose. That’s why I support concealed handgun licencing with strong standards. I am fine with ‘shall issue’ policies requiring the concealed licence holder to pass reasonable marksmanship, a course on when it is lawful to defend yourself or carry a weapon, and also some kind of effective psychological screening.

That way, you get what you want. Psychos carrying weapons out there are ‘stopped’ in those rare (in my estimation) cases where they are searched and found armed.

I suppose you could also have a rule that any “gun-free” zone where more than 50 people were present, had to have an armed security guard or two present who passed a test – like a courtroom.
(Three guards maybe – to keep an eye on each other)

I don’t worry about the guards going crazy. We cannot protect against every miniscule risk, and we could simply screen guards for craziness.

But you raise a good point. Gun free zones require some kind of protection the way courtrooms are. I think this would be practical in a world where gun free zones are as rare as I want them to be. It also sends the point that needs to be understood out there: gun free zones are dangerous places. We need a very powerful reason to make a place a gun free zone.

It needs to be a place under strict control and observation, and we need to justify that.

It used to be the case that kids would carry a rifle to school for show and tell. Kids used to carry pocket knives. I don’t think kids should be permitted to carry weapons today, but we should challenge the dogma that schools must have absolute prohibitions against law abiding adults carrying guns. I think the examples of teachers heroically trying to stop the shooter are powerful arguments for concealed carry.

I had to laugh reading Kman’s ruminations. I mean, I could write a “FakeKman” ‘bot who could answer in an indistinguishable fashion. I think he typifies what is wrong with the modern Left. It’s all about how you feel about yourself, pontificating. It’s not about the facts of the situation.

And you need to feel good about yourself, pontificating. So people who disagree with you are….not good.

I have said I have been wrong about many things, and willing to change my mind. I have argued, in this case, for compromise.

And I have brought up the very, very chilly statement by Good Old Raum. By the way, how many gun deaths in Chicago over the last few days, Mr. Mayor?. And that is with extremely restrictive rules and laws.

So go ahead, Kman: call for a ban. Confiscate. Because the only way you will gain the advantages you claim is via such a ban. So own your argument for a change.

Just so we’re all on the same page here (Kman, you can start with being on the same planet, m’kay?) let’s agree that this definition of the word “regulate” — “TO ADJUST FOR ACCURATE OPERATION” — is the one that applies to the Constitution. Yes? And that the alternate definition of that word — “to control or direct” — only applies within the minds of totalitarian leftists who think that the government knows best and the people know nothing.

1. No one needs to drink alcohol; it exists for one purpose only.
2. Alcohol causes terrible health threats in and outside the home.
3. Alcohol leads to consistent and tragic numbers of deaths each and every year.
4. Attempts to legislate reasonable use of alcohol are abused by criminals.
5. Alcohol is part of a lobbying system in the government.

I can replace “alcohol” with “guns” and get much the same gist, right?

Red herring, indeed. Making light of 75,000 deaths a year is serious indeed.

It’s just that Kman likes his Coors Lite. He seems like a Zima kind of guy, come to think of it.

And I think I should be able to target shoot.

Bad guys can drink alcohol and pile into a school bus. Crazy people can get a hold of guns and shoot innocent people.

Heck, looking at the statistics of alcohol and automobiles, we could always raise the age limit for drinking as a compromise! Don’t you care about the carnage and death?

See how “government knows best” and “emotion-based” thinking lead you into statism?

It’s not different. And the anti-gun people know it. This is politics, once again.

There is simply no need to have many of the types of weapons that are out there and easily available.

Kman,

Humor me. Tell me how you expect to get the thousands and thousand of guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill? What is your basic go-to plan to make sure they don’t have access in the future to them, and more importantly, right here and now, what are you going to do to disarm them?

With that, do you see a bit of any hypocrisy in the screams and shouts for more severe gun control or all out banning them from the very same administration that secretly sent thousands of arms across the border where they were used to kill untold numbers of people?

Are you telling me that word suddenly changes meaning when it gets to the Bill of Rights? Are there any other times — in the Constitution or in other writings of the era — where “regulate” is synonymous with “equip”?

Yes, I do. There are plenty of instances in the 1700s and 1800s where “well-regulated” is used to mean “properly functioning”, and has nothing at all to do with government control. Here are several examples

Perhaps “well-equipped” was a bit off the mark, but it was much closer to the truth than your claim that it means subject to government laws.

Fir the most part in Dubuque, the Democrat party is silent because the grandson of the their County Committee, who lived in his grandfather’s house, walked up to another kid on a busy downtown street and settled a disagreement with violence, just like the old man preaches. This time it was shooting the other kid in the face beflre shooting himself in the head.

I can replace “alcohol” with “guns” and get much the same gist, right?

I like this comparison, Simon. Alcohol is one of the things that we permit as a matter of freedom despite being who abuse their freedom causing tragedy. We tend to do this because the law abiding alcohol drinkers did nothing wrong, so banning alcohol from them would be unfair.

Also, of course, a prohibition on alcohol would not only be a failure, but it would lead to worse problems than a prohibition was meant to solve.

This is even more true of gun prohibition. As we see at the CT school, gun prohibition didn’t only fail, but it attracted a lawless psycho. The prohibition only worked on the good people… the people we least want unarmed.

My other question to you, Kman, is why are you not making the argument for better mental health services in our country? Why do you immediately go to gun control as the fix-all?

We know that those who commit such mass murders are afflicted with some sort of mental illness and/or other medical issue that renders them no longer rational or sane, so wouldn’t it be more beneficial to potential future victims if our energies and monies were spent in identifying them and providing secure treatments where they can not pose a threat to society and society can be protected from them?

Leviticus, shouldn’t it then stand that people should hate Obama, too? Consider, he publicly castigated John McCain and the right in general, accusing them of politicizing Benghazi in their attempts to find the truth. As a matter of fact, the MSM was singing the chorus in that condemnation.

“I like this comparison, Simon. Alcohol is one of the things that we permit as a matter of freedom despite being who abuse their freedom causing tragedy. We tend to do this because the law abiding alcohol drinkers did nothing wrong, so banning alcohol from them would be unfair.”

– Dustin

I submit that a more accurate analogy would be between guns and drugs, not guns and alcohol. There are many different types of guns with many different purposes, just like there are many different types of drugs with many different purposes. Alcohol is one type of drug with a specific range of purposes, just like a 9mm Beretta is a particular gun with a specific range of purposes.

Was that meant to be constructive? It comes across as trolling if you don’t elaborate what you mean.

I agree, actually, that policy makers, Bush included, took advantage of the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy to greatly increase government powers. Did Bush do this because he always dreamt of a TSA and expansive surveillance?

I see a lot of lefties who have always dreamt of gun control and have tried under the radar approaches now latch on to tragedy to try to promote this as a special time for urgent changes. They always wanted the gun control, and would want the exact same thing had there been no shooting, but are using the tragedy to advance their agenda.

I don’t think Bush did that. I think security theater was both an earnest (and in ways foolish) reaction to fear and also political risk aversion (if there is another tragedy, politicians want to show they did all they could).

I can see some similarities. A politician might be genuinely afraid of people with guns out of bigotry against lawful citizens, AKA bitter clingers. A politican might have zero tolerance policies about an array of things knowing this only serves to show the public that the Government Is Doing Something.

Your issue is you believe in your heart of hearts that centralized planning can legislate a perfect society.
But the truth is, human beings are flawed, therefore any endeavor involving human beings will inevitably have warts and inequity.
Murder is against the law, but people still attempt it. Bank robbery is against the law, put people still attempt it. And so on, and so forth.

We cannot “stop” people from doing nasty evil things. We can punish them after the fact, but we cannot prevent them from attempting to rob a bank or attempting to kill someone. We do have some known terrorists in a detention center called Gitmo, but you lefties say it is wrong to detain them until after they murder people.

The risk of having a free open society is that people may choose to engage in evil behavior. Some people are certifiably mentally ill or mentally impaired, but most of these shooting sprees appear to be carefully planned out for maximum impact, therefore it’s difficult to say that the person didn’t know what they were doing—even if they are clinically mentally deranged.

Religious instruction and the nuclear family used to be the foundation for which to mold children in to becoming responsible adults within a civil society—but the left wingers have fought against that tooth and nail.
For the past 40 or 50 years (much longer than I’ve been alive), the left wing intelligentsia has been telling everyone that the assailants are the victims of an uncaring society, and that society is therefore responsible for provoking them to engage in crime.
Look at Benghazi…the left wing narrative was that a YouTube video “forced” Jihadists to launch rockets at our Consulate.
If that’s what you lefties believe, then shouldn’t you lefties be first in line to want to stop Iran’s nuclear development ?

Guns are not the problem, because there are zillions of law-abiding Americans who own guns, yet do not go on shooting sprees at movie theatres, shopping malls, or schools.The problem is the same problem which has burdened law-abiding people for centuries—evil.The bad guys are always going to acquire weapons, even if they are “illegal.”
I want good law-abiding people to have guns to protect themselves and their neighbors from George Orwell’s proverbial (and literal) bad men who may come do them harm in the middle of the night.

“Well-regulated” is a specific construction implying
“running well, properly equipped or formed for the purpose”. The “power to regulate” means a specifically granted power to determine how the regulation will take place.

The 2nd amendment takes does not give the congress to regulate arms or the militia. It says that this is a purpose of the people (vs states) right to keep and bear arms.

Specific to Obama, why do you think there is a disconnect with the public in not seeing the connection between his own politicization of Newtown and his accusing the right of politicizing Benghazi? Why is the hypocrisy ignored?

We know that those who commit such mass murders are afflicted with some sort of mental illness and/or other medical issue that renders them no longer rational or sane, so wouldn’t it be more beneficial to potential future victims if our energies and monies were spent in identifying them and providing secure treatments where they can not pose a threat to society and society can be protected from them?

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, getting rid of the mentally ill would be better than getting rid of guns.

Going after the mentally ill infringes upon fewer people’s rights than going after guns.

Gun owners have a powerful lobby (in connection with their numerosity), while the mentally ill do not.

Keeping and bearing arms is a fundamental right, and the Supreme Court had already rejected rational basis scrutiny as the level of scrutiny used in 2nd Amendment challenges to gun laws. There is no fundamental right to be mentally ill, not is mental health a suspect classification, so a law authorizing or mandating internment or euthanasia of the mentally ill will only be subject to rational basis scrutiny. A judicial challenge against a policy of getting rid of the mentally ill would be more likely to fail than a judicial challenge against a policy of getting rid of guns.

Having talking heads talk about fully automatic weapons (illegal since the early 1930s), and issuing death threats against the NRA is, um, not helpful.

Interesting thing about death threats.

Just this year, an American soldier slaughtered a bunch of civilians, including children, in the Panjwai district in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan, with weapons issued to him by his commander-in-chief.

And I need not remind you of the consequences of issuing death threats to his commander-in-chief…

How many of the attacks by these sickos took place at gun shops or police stations?

None-right? They only go after the “safe” gun free zones. Safe for them but not their victims.

That means that while these people may be either evil or truly sick, they are not stupid. So, to reduce the likelihood of another attack, we should arm more people not take guns away. That just provides more targets.

Your issue is you believe in your heart of hearts that centralized planning can legislate a perfect society.

I think we can do better. There’s no inherent reason why gun violence is so much higher in this country than in others. There’s no reason why other countries should be better at this than we are. We just have to decide to do better.

1. Is there a gun-show loophole?
2. If so, should we close it?
3. Should we ban person-to-person gun sales? Handgun sales? Why or why not?

Private parties can sell eachother their guns without consulting with the FBI. If they do this at a gun show or at a garage sale, that is lawful. Some think this is a loophole, I guess.

A gun show is a very convenient way to buy and sell used firearms because you can look at them in person (rather than online), selection is better, and you can also encounter many people at one place who are interested in buying and selling a gun. I was able to get five offers on my pistol at the last gun show I was at, just walking down the aisles and asking the vendors, and yes, people who saw that I was selling the pistol came up to me and explained they were also interested. They got a good deal, and so did I, by using a marketplace.

I wouldn’t mind there being some organized way to check someone out before selling them a pistol at a gun show. Hell, I’d do that voluntarily. I think those talking about gun show loopholes are actually trying to eliminate the gun show private party sales, though, which would be sad.

I do not think we should register every firearm. So many nutcases have recently talked about banning all guns, or all guns of certain types, and they can’t really do that without registration. I don’t trust the democrat party and I think gun registration is step one and some form of gun confiscation is step two. Ugly and failed prohibition efforts are a pattern in American society and plenty of powerful democrats clearly would want this kind of result.

On the other hand, I think a licence to carry a concealed handgun should have high standards as I mentioned upthread. If you licence the person, you don’t have enough information to effectively confiscate anything, so I think the risk/benefit is worthwhile.

But remember, I’m a law abiding nice guy. What would the speedway bomber do if it was illegal to bomb a school parking lot? He’d bomb it anyway. What would a drug dealer do if the gun shows were shut down? He would buy his guns out of the trunk of a car, where he was already buying them. ‘The gun show loophole’ wouldn’t have prevented this tragedy, because the shooter stole the gun from someone who would pass any realistic screening process.

1. Is there a gun-show loophole?
2. If so, should we close it?
3. Should we ban person-to-person gun sales? Handgun sales? Why or why not?

Did any of these contribute to the Newtown tragedy? No? Then why bring them up? Seems a bit knee-jerk to bring up the same thing that (AGAIN) had no bearing on the event, just because your side has an obsessive theory regarding it.

Name the last time someone shot up a place with a gun bought in a private sale.

@Insty….
I’ve been hearing cries for “compromise” from the usual gun control proponents. Funny, but in a real compromise, both sides give something up. What CURRENT gun control laws are they prepared to repeal in return any new laws they’d like to enact? None, of course. Which is why the call for compromise is a cynical lie.

There’s no inherent reason why gun violence is so much higher in this country than in others. There’s no reason why other countries should be better at this than we are. We just have to decide to do better.

Comment by Kman (5576bf) — 12/18/2012

That’s a dishonestly presented statistic.

The UK has 2034 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. The USA has 430 per 100,000. Israel and Switzerland, which have well armed populaces, have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world. When the UK imposed severe gun control, gun violence went up, and also violence in general skyrocketed.

That’s because gun control increases violence.

Of course the USA, a wealthy country with lots of guns, will have more of its violence rely on guns. But our violence rates are superior to countries that ban guns because our law abiding citizens can protect themselves.

And the most dangerous places in this country… the places with the most gun violence and violence in general are the places where democrats have imposed the strongest gun control.

Gun control is tied to more violence. Gun free zones are tied to more massacres. As gun ownership increases, homicide rates decrease.

Did any of these contribute to the Newtown tragedy? No? Then why bring them up? Seems a bit knee-jerk to bring up the same thing that (AGAIN) had no bearing on the event, just because your side has an obsessive theory regarding it.

Name the last time someone shot up a place with a gun bought in a private sale.

Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/18/2012

You’re right. I don’t think Leviticus realizes it, but he’s pushing a political agenda by pointing to a tragedy that doesn’t appear to have been helped in any way by the issue he is complaining about.

The problem we have seen recently is that crazy people are allowed to get hold of guns. Either they pass background checks because their shrink doesn’t tell anyone what a nutter they are (Colorado, Tucson) or they got hold of someone else’s guns (Newtown, Columbine) who should have locked them up better. In the Newtown case, Moms maybe ought to have been on the nutter list, too.

The loose-guns problem is best served by liability lawyers, who can exact a brand of justice beyond the ken of mere prosecutors (see Simpson, OJ). The harboring of crazies behind privacy walls needs to end, and if you want to pass laws, that looks to be most effective.

If there were some gun laws that looked likely to have stopped this kind of massacre, I’d be inclined to go along. But banning or restricting semi-auto weapons isn’t one of them — the guy had 3 handguns and a shotgun and could have done the crime with those. Instead it looks like the same wrong answer brought up this time, as last, and sorry, no sale.

After JFK was killed they banned mail order sales of guns. Did not help Dr King or RFK one bit. But with the “logic” we’ve seen the last few days, I’m a bit surprised they didn’t ban book depositories, too.

JD, You’re Wrong!
An “Assault Weapon” is a semi-automatic rifle that has military-like features – and the Bushmaster Lanza used falls into that category. This can be summed up as “it looks icky”, and not like Dad’s Model-70 deer rifle (or more closely to type, the Winchester M-100 semi-auto carbine in .308 – which is a true High-Powered rifle, unlike the current crop of .223/5.56NATO wannabees).

“Assault Rifle” though, has a very specific legal definition. The most defining of its characteristics is that it is capable of full-automatic and/or burst fire.
Pols, and media types, are completely incapable of making the distinction, or they just want to lie about it to emphasize their position.

On the other hand, I think a licence to carry a concealed handgun should have high standards as I mentioned upthread.

Most people have no problem with it as long as it meets strict scrutiny. (The Supreme Court might hold that laws regulating the time, place, and manner of bearing arms would be subject to intermediate scrutiny in a 2nd Amendment challenge, but as a matter of public policy, I oppose any such law that fails strict scrutiny.)

A person should not have to meet any set of criteria to get a license; rather, the default position is that the person is entitled to a license. Rather, a person must meet a set of objective criteria to justify the goveernment
denying a license.

Note that, ten years or so from now, when fingerprint recognition is faultless and cheap, all new guns will be personalized (for liability reasons) and the loose-gun thing won’t be an issue. That won’t help with older guns, but anyone the least bit concerned about others getting their weapons will have these personalized guns.

Unless of course, there are only bb guns left to buy after the layers of regulations the abolitionists propose.

The problem we have seen recently is that crazy people are allowed to get hold of guns. Either they pass background checks because their shrink doesn’t tell anyone what a nutter they are (Colorado, Tucson) or they got hold of someone else’s guns (Newtown, Columbine) who should have locked them up better. In the Newtown case, Moms maybe ought to have been on the nutter list, too.

A person should not have to meet any set of criteria to get a license; rather, the default position is that the person is entitled to a license. Rather, a person must meet a set of objective criteria to justify the government
denying a license.

Note that, ten years or so from now, when fingerprint recognition is faultless and cheap, all new guns will be personalized (for liability reasons) and the loose-gun thing won’t be an issue. That won’t help with older guns, but anyone the least bit concerned about others getting their weapons will have these personalized guns.

Have you ever heard of Sten guns?

Or MAC-11’s?

Even if there were laws mandating personalization of guns, unpersonalized guns can be manufactured in basement and garage machine shops.

What would the speedway bomber do if it was illegal to bomb a school parking lot? He’d bomb it anyway.

He wouldn’t have bombed it if it was legal, though, nor if it carried a higher penalty. This was carefully calibrated, or rather he attempted to carefully calibrate it (but failed)

The key point was that this was a federal crime,
and confined within the borders of Speedway, Indiana, so the Indianapolis Police Department, he thought would not get involved, while Speedway detectives would be taken away from the murder case.

It was a federal crime and considered a very serious one, so they’d prosecute it, and it might make the state murder investigation go away. In fact, it did.

He just didn’t count on the big sentence, a result of injuring someone more than he expected to.

Tell you what. If you advocate for the same gun control laws as they have in Switzerland, I’ll be more than happy. The problem is… you won’t.

Comment by Kman (5576bf)

I was showing how the statistic you presented was dishonest. I see you have ignored that.

But let the record show that Kman (and perhaps Gary Galrud in comment 101) both support the government requiring virtually all adult men to have a gun at their home. That is a major part of Swiss gun control. It’s true they require a background check before a purchase of a handgun (I’ve always been required to submit to one when I’ve purchased mine too). I’m afraid I cannot accept gun registration, however, as I do not trust that it won’t be used for an illfated attempt to confiscate some weapons at some point in the future.

Perhaps if Kman’s offer was sincere, and could rest assured that every home in America would have a weapon, I would be more open to the registration, but I think it would be unrealistic to rely on that.

Anyway, good starting point, Kman. We can continue compromising from your position that every home in America should have a gun.

Well, some that are currently loose might need to institutionalized; we used to that a LOT more. There are ways to do that with due process, appeal and habeus corpus.

But the real deal is that mental health professionals all have clients that, at least temporarily, should not be given guns. But they cannot legally tell anyone about that. The Colorado theater shooter’s therapist really wanted to tell someone, but felt she could not breach confidentiality.

We currently ban gun possession, not just thwart background checks, for people not accused of any crime but subject to court orders and injunctions. Sometimes pro forma ones, as in divorce. There could be a 90-day list or something, renewable, that prevents people under treatment from obtaining weapons, with procedures to make the suspension longer.

I would rather ban nut’s access to dangerous things than ban all access to them lest a nut get hold of one.

He wouldn’t have bombed it if it was legal, though, nor if it carried a higher penalty. This was carefully calibrated, or rather he attempted to carefully calibrate it (but failed)

You’re right. You got me with that one.

He just didn’t count on the big sentence, a result of injuring someone more than he expected to.

He bombed a public school parking lot during a sporting event and didn’t expect to seriously injure someone?!?!

With all due respect, Sammy, you have a way of asserting facts that aren’t facts, but rather are your musings.

I believe Brett simply thought he would get away with it, and actually counted on someone getting seriously harmed, and continued setting bombs until he accomplished that mission. Isn’t that what happened? And isn’t that closer to his pattern? This is not a calibrated and careful person. This is a person who goes way over the top in order to overwhelm normal people’s response.

Private parties can sell eachother their guns without consulting with the FBI.

In CA, and there might be other states too, ALL Private Party sales have to be conducted through an FFL so that a background check may be conducted.
CA also requires a 10-day Waiting Period; and during that period, the FFL must hold the weapon(s) involved in the transaction.

Actually, it was the Gun Control Act of 1968 that banned mail-order, and set up the system of FFL’s that we now have.
JFK’s shooting set the argument into motion, but it was RFK, and MKL,Jr. that sealed the deal.

Being an FFL of some long standing, and in CA, I have intimate knowledge of what the law considers an “Assault Weapon” and what it considers an “Assault Rifle”.
You might Google those terms and see how they are defined in Legislative/Regulatory acts.

Yes, you can commit “assault” with most anything you can pick up or control.
In Westwood (a suburb of L.A.) a woman hearing voices drove her Big-3 sedan into a crowd of waiting theatre goers, killing many.
That was ADW.
You hit somebody over the head with a Louisville Slugger: That is ADW.

Once more, the context matters. We’re talking about firearms.

BTW, it has always been my understanding that “well regulated” as it pertains to the 2-A meant “training and equipped”.

Kman – What are your suggestions? Empty emotionalism serves no purpose. You said you know gun enthusiasts with ideas that would make the NRA blanch, but would also not stop mass killings. Do you have any useful suggestions or are you just trolling?

The Fees are as follows:
For the P/P transaction: $25 (set by law);
For the Dealer’s Report of Sale (DROS – which initiates the background check): $25-35 ($25 is what the dealer has to pay the state for the service, markup is optional).

Holding the gun:
The process is that the dealer collects ID info on both the buyer and seller. If the buyer “falls out”, the state runs the info on the seller. If he also “falls out”, the state confiscates the gun. That’s why the dealer has to hold the gun(s).

I was planning on going gun shopping with my youngest son tomorrow afternoon. We were thinking about a .22LR pistol for training and practice and low cost of ammunition. I was also planning on enrolling us both in NRA approved pistol safety classes to which he will probably object since he has done plenty of rifle and shot gun shooting.

There are no gun shops within 10 miles of where I live due to the restrictive gun laws passed by communities around here.

The sad thing is that getting your son a pistol so he can practice marksmanship is a responsible way to encourage good gun skills including safety. You’re being a responsible parent, even taking a safety class with your son so he can learn by your example, but your government is interfering.

Meanwhile, many parents do not teach their children gun safety out of a misguided sense of caution.

Kman asserts more gun control is better gun control. I think education, realism, and citizens being able to protect themselves is more results oriented.

There is no end to that tipping point if you are willing to further limit a Constitutional right because a mentally ill person used a gun to kill these beautiful children. There will always be someone willing to hurt others, but our rights will be gone.

Kman, with his usual dishonesty, writes: “We can do better at gun control. We can make sure that the “well-regulated militia” of the Second Amendment is indeed well-regulated.”

“Well-regulated” in the 18th Century had a meaning of well-ordered, well-drilled or well-trained. Much as there were “Regulator” clocks. To assert that it meant the modern equivalent of “regulating” in the terms of rules that would exclude people from exercising their rights is intentionally dishonest fabrication.

I nominate Kman to be one of the wise sages to sit on the National Panel that will govern us.
Since it is a given that politicians are inherently evil and so is the Constitution, we should consent to being governed by an oligarchy of lawyers, judges, journalists, community organizers, public skool teacherz, and punk-ass union thugs.
They will rule by dictat, and we will entrust them to determine which parts of the Constitution are Constitutional, and which parts of the Constitution are inconvenient, and therefore expendable.

I can’t wait to find out how big a cup of soda I will be allowed to drink, which books I will be allowed to purchase for my nieces and nephews, and how much of my income I will be allowed to keep !

Simple fact, whether or not an alphabetist like Kman can accept it or not: freedom times security equals a constant (I think Larry Niven said it first, but who knows—I’m sure good old Sammy will weigh in on that).

I’m not sure if he said it first or not, but it aoppears to be in one of his collections of laws.

The fatuous nonsense about “assault weapons” is just more dishonesty from gun control advocates. First of all, the term is meaningless propaganda. The legal definitions that attempt to “define” it in the expired Federal “Assault Weapons” ban and the Connecticut state ban that copied it and did nothing to prevent the shooting makes combinations of cosmetic or functionally meaningless features of guns illegal. After all, just how stupid do you have to be to be convinced that a bayonet lug – a part on which a bayonet can be mounted – makes a rifle more dangerous? Yeah, Connecticut’s ban ensured that none of the children at Sandy Hook had to face a knife hung on the end of the rifle.

We can do better at gun control? No, we can’t. Because none of the gun control proposals do anything effective – we’ve had years of experimentation state by state – and none of the proposals do anything to address the problem of the state’s inability under current law (and unwillingness) to involuntarily commit those who are dangerous.

It is still unclear what Lanza’s situation is. But Holmes of the Colorado theater shooting was known to be dangerous to a Colorado state employee and nothing was done. Loughner in the Congresswoman Gifford’s attack was known to local law enforcement – specifically the sheriff – to be dangerous and nothing was done. Well, that’s not accurate, the very sheriff who aided Loughner in escaping the consequences of his earlier actions stood in front of a camera and called for gun control … nicely distracting from his own failures.

Tambascio said Nancy picked up the gun hobby in the last few years after a retired New York police officer took her to a shooting range. “She actually liked shooting a gun,” he said, and she started to take Adam to the shooting range “because she wanted to find something to do with him to bond. He loved it. I heard he was very conscious of gun safety.”

So, it’s all the fault of that retired New York City cop. But not really.

Dustin – Thanks. Pistol would be for me. He lives with his mom and she does not want any guns in the house. At 18 he also cannot legally buy a hand gun in Illinois, plus we’re still waiting the arrival of his FOID card.

Maybe Adam Lanza didn’t want to go to that 4 year college for special needs students. And he didnt want her moving near him. Maybe he thought he’d be more regimented. Or he liked his life. And this change wasn’t really his idea.

And if Mohammed Manea Al Quahtani, had been allowed to enter the country, United 93, would have had a full complement, to prevent Beamer and co, from breaking into the cockpit, before they crashed into DC.

Put down the crack pipe, friend.
The 9/11 terrorists used box cutters to threaten people, and gain access into the pilot’s cockpit. They didn’t use guns—that’s the point. Eliminating guns won’t eliminate crime, violence, or terrorism.

“Evil” is the problem—guns, box cutters, homemade bombs, et al—those are merely tools of the trade.

Actually, one or more of the “cabin attendants” on the various planes had their throats slit with those “box cutters”.
Cell-phone conversations informed us of these fatalities prior to the planes crashing.
So, I think we can give this anecdotal evidence the same credibility as a “death-bed confession”; certainly, the 9-11 Commission did.

Wrong, Tilly.
In CA, you are required to possess a Handgun Safety Certificate (HSC) to purchase a handgun.
To be awarded such, you must have a govt issued pix ID, and correctly answer 22 of 30 T-F/Multiple-guess questions on basic safety knowledge as it relates to firearms.
Many states have similar requirements.
But, that all do not can be laid at the feet of that old bugaboo….Federalism!
Plus, there’s also the concept of how much the State can interfere with a Basic Right possessed by Citizens, which is a question partially answered by Heller, and McDonald.

askeptic, unless you’re talking specifically about a carry permit, not in the state I’m from. Also, for guns, I would rather err on the side of caution. If someone can’t get a gun who deserves one, it’s unfortunate. Allowing a homicidal maniac to acquire one, is a nightmare.

“Of course you don’t drill by yourself. The militia has to keep arms under its own collective ownership if it wants to be well regulated.”

Sammy – I thought we had been over this? At the time of the American Revolution, militias and in fact the Continental Army were made up of individual gun owners supplying their own arms to fight the enemy rather than some organized body passing out guns to people who enlisted for limited periods.

You notion of collective right has been a complete fabrication from the start.

No, Milhouse, they were not subject to the assault weapons ban. the Bushmaster .223 is not an assault rifle.

These two statements are orthogonal. Of course it isn’t an assault rifle, but nor were any of the assault weapons banned in 1994. That’s why it was an assault weapon ban, not an assault rifle ban. “Assault weapon” means any weapon banned in that act. It’s self-referential.

Whether or not it is not hard to do is not the point. Being semi-auto does not make it an assault weapon.

Of course not; but nor does it prevent it from being one. Many semi-autos were on the list. Are you sure this one wasn’t? Was it not ugly enough?

I realize box cutters were used to murder some of the people on the plane.
My only point about the box cutters was that the lefties tell us that elimination of guns will result in an arcadian world of fuzzy bunnies, blooming flowers, and pixies in song.
My response is that the biggest mass murder in US history didn’t even involve guns.

“Some businesses make you take a mental health test before they hire you. But you don’t need to take any kind of test before buying a machine made specifically for killing people?

Comment by Tillman (51d7aa) — 12/18/2012 @ 12:09 pm
”

Fraudulent analogy. Firearms are not “a machine made specifically for killing people”. Offhand, of the many firearms I own, perhaps 1/4tr have specifically self-defense purposes as their primary function. And given the hundred million plus firearms out there, there are an awful lot of firearms “unfulfilled” given the relatively few homicides in the US every year.

Lastly, only a very tiny number of businesses actually administer “mental health tests”. Stupid claim. Only a minority even conduct criminal background checks, now mandatory for all purchases through a gun dealer in the US.

As I mentioned, Tillman, it is a “Federalism” issue – each state gets to set their own rules beyond what is contained in GCA-68 (as amended), which mandates legal residency (w/exceptions), minimum age, and proof of ID (among other things) – as long as those restrictions are not violations of the basic right as determined by SCOTUS.
But, just as we don’t give mental copentancy exams at the DMV, or at the computer-store when you want to buy hardware to facilitate your 1-A Rights, we don’t practice prior-restraint – mental wise – on the 2nd Amendment.
Now, if you’ve been adjudicated by a court-of-law as a threat to yourself or others, you will not be permitted to purchase, acquire, or possess, firearms. The same holds true for those subject to a restraining order for reasons of spousal/domestic abuse; the commission of misdemeanors involving violence, or a felony.

Buying out of state:
The CA DoJ requires that any FFL shipping a firearm into CA receive prior clearance that the intended recipient is a Dealer in Good Standing.
It is unlawful to purchase a handgun from a dealer in other than the state in which the buyer resides (GCA-68).
Furthermore, it is unlawful to purchase a long-arm from a dealer located in a state other than which you reside, unless it is a contiguous state and the transaction meets all of the laws and regulations of the state in which you reside (GCA-68, as amended).

So, both of the options you list Dave are violations of law (IMC): purchase out-of-state, or Black Market, and can result in a felony prosecution at both the State, and Federal levels.

Since laws against murder don’t work, why not just repeal them too? Talk about idiotic arguments…

You’re so right, that is an idiotic argument.

Oh, isn’t that what you meant?

I keep running into this argument in drug debates too. The difference is obvious. Murder is wrong; it ought to be illegal even if the law was totally ineffective. It was a crime before there were any laws, and it will be a crime even if all laws are abolished and we achieve total anarchy. And it ought to be punished even if that achieves absolutely nothing but justice. Because punishing it is right, and leaving it unpunished is wrong.

Guns, on the other hand, or drugs, are not wrong. Proposals to ban them are not based on the claim that they are wrong (and if they are so based then they should be rejected out of hand as the product of a delusional or severely twisted set of ethics); such proposals are instead based on the claim that they are dangerous, that allowing them will lead to some harm or wrong. Therefore they must be judged by the likelihood that banning them will reduce the harm or wrong feared. If it will not, either because the premise is faulty or because the ban will be ignored, then the proposal must fail.

Kman – What are your suggestions? Empty emotionalism serves no purpose. You said you know gun enthusiasts with ideas that would make the NRA blanch, but would also not stop mass killings. Do you have any useful suggestions or are you just trolling?

Sure. For example, the same background checks for guns purchased at gun shows as they do from licensed dealerships. 84 percent of gun owners (including 76 percent of NRA members) support this.

That’s just one of many common sense gun control measures that even gun owners can get behind. The problem ,as usual, is that there are many conservatives and libertarians who fight against anything common sense, because (I suppose) it’s their knee jerk reaction to do so.

Any purported survey of gun-owners, and NRA members, is inaccurate.
Many gun-owners will not respond to any survey involving firearms as they do not wish anyone to know what they have, or how many.
This even shows up in attempts to find out how many gun-owners have used a firearm in self-defense, even just mentioning the presence of a gun, having to brandish it, or actually using it.
They don’t want to talk about it.
The same applies to NRA members. And, since the membership rolls are not public information (just like you can’t get a membership list of the NAACP), those that would respond to a request for such a poll represent a segment that may, or may not, be representative of the membership-at-large.

For example, the same background checks for guns purchased at gun shows as they do from licensed dealerships.

Another example of the kind of misrepresentations that the gun control advocates engage in.

You would think from gun control activist propaganda that no guns at gun shows receive a background check at sale. This is an intentional misrepresentation.

All licensed gun dealers conduct background checks (except when the ATF and FBI coerce them not to … see Operation Fast and Furious …). At their shops or at gun shows.

In most states, a private individual can sell their firearms to another private individual residing in the same state without any paperwork or background check. And in many states, these people could go to a gun show carrying a gun they want to sell and meet someone who wants to buy. Just as they can put an ad in the paper to sell it. Or they can rent a table if they have the inclination.

Gun control advocates act like there is something specially dangerous that happens at gun shows. But there isn’t.

Some states forbid private sales w/o a licensed gun dealer as intermediary ( like California, a well known crime free paradise ). Some states have taken it upon themselves to buy into this horse manure about gun shows and require that a background check be conducted for a sale that occurs at a gun show.

See, what would help here is the character vouch like what exists in Australia and Canada..

Sammy, what are you talking about? There is no such law in Australia. In Australia arming oneself lawfully for self-defense is literally impossible. It doesn’t matter how good your character is, or how many people will vouch for it, self-defense is not considered a genuine reason for obtaining a firearm of any sort. This is draconian beyond imagination, and anyone who speaks of Australia as having reasonable gun laws betrays himself as a gun-grabber and an enemy of freedom, exactly like someone who speaks of Ceausescu’s Romania as having reasonable press laws.

Yes, that’s true SPQR.
Those two individuals can meet at the gun show, exchange contact info, and then meet later.
If their state does not require transactions to go through a dealer, it would be perfectly legal.
If the state does, it’s no different than buying a gun out of the trunk of someone’s car at the local school parking lot (it’s an old joke in CA that if you want to get a gun without going through the background check and waiting period, just go down to your local HS and ask around. Within a 1/2-hour some one will show up to make a deal with you).

There are conflicting freedoms at stake. Do gun-owners have freedoms protected by the Constitution? Certainly. But so did the victims of Newtown, Aurora, etc. We’re at a tipping point, folks, and the Second Amendment isn’t the relevant clause of the Constitution.

Funny how you would never say that about the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. You want to talk about the lives that could be saved by messing with the second amendment? Sure, right after we talk about all the lives that are lost every year just because of such non-constitutional rules as Miranda and the exclusionary rule. Are you willing to get rid of Miranda warnings, and admit into criminal trials evidence that was illegally obtained? If you are not, then you are not interested in an adult conversation about balancing freedoms. And if you are not, then don’t you dare sneer at the idea that these children’s lives may be the price of freedom.

Seriously, why not? What has changed since it was routine and nobody questioned it?

Well, our culture has become what it is today for one.

I would love to see marksmanship field trips and think everyone should be educated on gun safety. I personally don’t think kids should carry weapons at school because I don’t expect kids to be responsible yet. Some are. Some aren’t.

But this is just coming from my gut and isn’t really something I’ve pondered on.

re you willing to get rid of Miranda warnings, and admit into criminal trials evidence that was illegally obtained?

Funny how they are more than willing to apply “common sense” restrictions on an explicit Constitutional individual right, but would never dream of doing so to other explicit Rights like the 1st Amendment, or created rights like abortion.

You guys do know that 93% of murders, rapes, and robberies would be eliminated if we just killed all black Americans, right?

Yep. And surely if their freedoms conflict with those of all the murder victims theirs should give way, right? Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that? Michael Ejercito seems willing to kill all the “mentally ill” to make the rest of us a little safer, so why not this, either instead or as well?

Actually, there’s no need to kill them, or even to intern them; just ban them from owning weapons, and make them and their property subject to searches whenever the police see them. Surely that’s not much freedom to give up in the name of safety. No? Are all the victims of black crime, who could be saved by such a modest proposal, merely the price of black freedom? KMan? Michael? Anybody?

So if you’re at least sane enough to see why this would be wrong, and why the price in lives for not doing this is indeed worth it, then let’s not hear any more about messing with the second amendment.

I agree, actually, that policy makers, Bush included, took advantage of the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy to greatly increase government powers. Did Bush do this because he always dreamt of a TSA and expansive surveillance?

No, because the TSA was not his idea, it was the price the Democrats demanded for going along with the war.

Dave, having no way to know what you mean by”complete psycho”, if he is stable and harmless, and is going to stay that way for the foreseeable future, we probably have different definitions of complete psycho.

To liberal, as evidenced here by Kman, Tillman, JEA and others, as well as the Democrat Racist Media Industrial Complex, EMOTIONS ARE EMERGENCIES and something must be done NOW(!!!!) about them. Unfortunately, what they usually propose doing with their fiercely independent thinking, knee jerk, hive mind, community-based reality bloviations involves doing things that won’t address the specific issue which gave rise to the emotional outburst and/or taking things or rights away from other people.

“...If I’m right on this, then banning assault weapons would have as little effect on mass shootings as banning whiskey would have on drunk driving. Even if we concluded that drunk drivers were disproportionately drunk on whiskey, banning whiskey would just mean that the drunk drivers will shift to vodka, gin, tequila, or other alcoholic beverages that are just as dangerous as whiskey. The same is true for the so-called “assault weapons.”

Don’t you just hate it when someone relies on a legal definition (found in the USC) for something as innocuous as “Whiskey”, which everyone knows just means “booze”, right?

CA also requires a 10-day Waiting Period; and during that period, the FFL must hold the weapon(s) involved in the transaction.

In my opinion, this is an unnecessary hassle for all parties. I wonder if the policy justification is that it will force someone to rethink whatever crime they ran to the gun store to commit.

I think the policy justification is that a person who gets the sudden idea that they need a gun will decide that they don’t really need it, or that it’s too much hassle to have to come back. Of course this may be because they’re dead.

CA has had a “Cooling Off” period since the early 1920’s – it was IMO a reaction to the red/anarchist scares of the time. It started off at 3-days, and got all the way to 20-days in the 1990’s.

What I wrote above was specifically about P/P transactions, and the ability of the State to ascertain the eligibility for gun-ownership of both the buyer, and seller (if applicable).

All firearm sales in CA involve a 10-day wait, except for those firearms classified as “Curio’s and Relics” (long-guns only – handguns using “fixed” ammunition require a 10-day wait regardless of when they were manufactured).

Yes, you can commit “assault” with most anything you can pick up or control.

Yes, a friend of mine who’s an ADA here in Brooklyn was moaning to me about grand juries that don’t do as they’re told, and set up utterly unreasonable barriers to the smooth course of prosecuting bad guys. Why, just this week, he told me, he had brought before them a case where the defendant had picked up a chair and beat someone senseless. They true-billed the assault and GBH charges, but they no-billed him on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. What a bunch of maroons. The fellow was clearly using the chair as a weapon, to commit a crime, and this is clearly within the legal definition of a weapon, and they just don’t understand the low bar that’s supposed to apply for indictment. He was rather surprised when I told him that I would have no-billed it too, that a chair is not a weapon no matter what you use it for, that possessing it can never itself be a crime, and that he had a chutzpah trying to bring such a charge in the first place.

“I had the steel knife, and now four titanium decorations in my skull.”

nk – I was recommending a new glass Targa top instead of the original equipment for a friend who underwent some brain surgery. That way people could see what was going on in there plus he could actually prove he had a brain. He did not go for it.

That, of course, is the point of the “militia” clause in the second amendment. The right it protects is not that of the militia, but of the people. The militia clause comes to explain why the right of the people is so important that it needs specific protection, and why more states insisted on it than on any other right: the reason why it’s so important that the people’s right to arm themselves not be infringed is that if they haven’t got any weapons they can’t show up to militia training, let alone to an actual militia callout, and without a militia that works properly all our freedoms are in danger.

There is no end to that tipping point if you are willing to further limit a Constitutional right because a mentally ill person used a gun to kill these beautiful children.

if the problem is caused by men tally ill people, the least we can do is tailor the solutions to mentally ill people and leave the sane alone.

I think the policy justification is that a person who gets the sudden idea that they need a gun will decide that they don’t really need it, or that it’s too much hassle to have to come back. Of course this may be because they’re dead.

Some businesses make you take a mental health test before they hire you. But you don’t need to take any kind of test before buying a machine made specifically for killing people?

Nothing prevents some businesses from making you take such a test before buying a gun. But no law requires businesses to administer these tests for employment, and many people are skeptical of them. There are companies who subject job-seekers to handwriting analysts too, and for all I know astrologers and tea-leaf readers; that doesn’t justify a law requiring such screening.

There was a lot of variation. I think Clayton Cramer’s work revealed a lot of this when he was debunking Bellesiles’ lies. Some places there were communal muskets for the militia use. Some places a wealthy patron bought muskets for the militia company he raised/led. And every other variation you can think of.

Newt was brilliant in explaining why there was no need beyond what was written into the bill as the NICS system, but they allowed States to keep their extended periods (a mistake I believe that should be challenged under the Equal Protection Clause).
But NICS was a major concession by the Brady Bunch to get the votes for the AWB. Another concession wrung from their bloodless little non-hearts was a 10-yr Sunset Clause.
Remember, it only passed by one vote IIRC.

and none of the proposals do anything to address the problem of the state’s inability under current law (and unwillingness) to involuntarily commit those who are dangerous.

That, apparently was what caused it.

Tell someone or let them know their life as they know it is over, they are going to be turned into a slave with virtually no rights, and they are basically being expelled from the human race – if you were to try to think of something most likely to precipitate a suicide or a murder suicide, or worse, that would be it.

I’m sure there are others (I can think of some now.) Firearms, not so much, although sometimes used that way. How many deaths from firearms in 2011? How many rounds of ammunition fired in 2011? The last time I found reasonable figures for the ammo thing, it was about a million rounds fired per death. So if designed to kill humans, a very poor design.

I hope no one is comparing restriction of access to weapons from people with disordered minds to something as arbitrary as race.

There’s nothing arbitrary about race. You can’t deny that race is very highly correlated with violent crime. Banning black people from owning guns would save at least as many lives as anything else being proposed. Interning them would save even more. That doesn’t make it right. Some lives are indeed a price worth paying for freedom.

238. Milhouse, I don’t buy that argument. If someone can’t even pass a mental health test to buy a gun, they have no business having a gun. If someone else kills them, then at least we know that we didn’t sell a gun to someone who has no business owning one in the first place. Now I am assuming that such a mental health test can be devised, but I don’t believe that it’s a big assumption.

If someone can’t even pass a mental health test to buy a gun, they have no business having a gun. If someone else kills them, then at least we know that we didn’t sell a gun to someone who has no business owning one in the first place.

You smug, arrogant, piece of sh*t. That is truly a monstrous statement. You don’t give a damn about people’s lives, do you? What makes that person’s blood less red than that of those children in Newtown?

Here’s a proposal I just thought of: If, for any reason, the state decides that a person’s right to arm themselves must be restricted for the greater good, then the state must assume responsibility for his safety. I don’t mean protective custody, I mean that the state must supply him with an armed bodyguard 24/7 at taxpayers’ expense, until either he dismisses the guard or the restriction is lifted. And that bodyguard should be bound by the equivalent of lawyer-client confidentiality about anything he sees on the job; if he sees illegal activity he must not report it, unless it’s something that a lawyer would also have to report.

Here’s a proposal I just thought of: If, for any reason, the state decides that a person’s right to arm themselves must be restricted for the greater good, then the state must assume responsibility for his safety. I don’t mean protective custody, I mean that the state must supply him with an armed bodyguard 24/7 at taxpayers’ expense, until either he dismisses the guard or the restriction is lifted. And that bodyguard should be bound by the equivalent of lawyer-client confidentiality about anything he sees on the job; if he sees illegal activity he must not report it, unless it’s something that a lawyer would also have to report.

Milhouse yes it is arbitrary, arbitrary race discrimination against a collective. It has no bearing on an individuals character or proclivities. Mental illness is specific to an individual with an individual diagnosis, and any comparison, and it is also disease.

Milhouse yes it is arbitrary, arbitrary race discrimination against a collective. It has no bearing on an individuals character or proclivities. Mental illness is specific to an individual with an individual diagnosis, and any comparison, and it is also disease.

Skin colour is not an individual trait?! Any individual can be easily diagnosed as black based entirely on looking at him, and you cannot dispute the fact that restrictions on all such people would save thousands of lives, just as would restrictions on all people with “mental illness”. What is special about “disease” as opposed to “race”? Why is it more legitimate to deprive someone of their rights for one rather than the other? There’s nothing holy about race; if we must have a national conversation and look for ways to save lives, and the bill of rights is to negotiable in that quest, then we should look everywhere and put all of it up. And if we’re not prepared to do that (as we shouldn’t be) then we should admit that freedom is worth more than saving lives.

Good point, friend, about the hysterical urgency always being promoted by the lefties.
The victims of Newtown have not all yet even been buried, but the lefties in Washington are already pounding their fists on the podium, demanding legislation be passed for this or that.

Except they never have that same urgency when it comes to Fast & Furious or Benghazi…in those instances, fact-finding takes months if not years.

Milhouse yes it is arbitrary, arbitrary race discrimination against a collective. It has no bearing on an individuals character or proclivities. Mental illness is specific to an individual with an individual diagnosis, and any comparison, and it is also disease.

Comment by Sarahw (b0e533) — 12/18/2012

This should be obvious. Relying on race to determine any traits is irrational. Relying on mental illness to determine someone’s mental traits is reasonable. This is the difference between prejudice and conventional judgment.

This should be obvious. Relying on race to determine any traits is irrational. Relying on mental illness to determine someone’s mental traits is reasonable. This is the difference between prejudice and conventional judgment.

Why is one more reasonable than the other? Most people who are and will be designated as “mentally ill” are not going to harm anybody, and their lives and freedoms are just as important as anyone else’s. Interning or “euthanising” them, or even just denying them the means of protecting themselves, would certainly make everyone else safer, since as a group their crime rate is significantly higher than the average; but exactly the same is true of black people. If we are to throw freedom out the window in the quest to be safer, then we should do both; if we are not, then we should do neither. Locking someone up, or leaving them defenseless, or denying them any other civil liberty, without their having actually done anything to warrant it, is very dangerous, and must be done only in the clearest cases where there’s significant evidence that that individual poses such a danger to others that we have no choice but to deprive him of his liberty, while doing everything we can to make it up to him (e.g. by providing a 24/7 bodyguard).

Word this am is that President Obama is going to appoint a commission to study the problem of guns and mass shooting, and is going to put VP Biden in charge of the effort…just like he was put in charge of keeping track of how the stimulus funds were spent…

Who should be more upset, people who are afraid Obama wants to do away with gun rights, or people who think he was sincere about, “Doing something”?

Our misguided friend Kman keeps pounding his fist on the table, yelling, “We can do better ! We can do better !,” but he never does say exactly where the state of Connecticut failed in the area of gun laws.

From what I understand, the state had already rejected Lanza’s application to legally purchase a rifle. What else could the state do ?

Not all the facts have been confirmed yet, but it presently appears that Lanza may have acquired the weapons from among his mother’s cache.

72. …We know that those who commit such mass murders are afflicted with some sort of mental illness and/or other medical issue that renders them no longer rational or sane, so wouldn’t it be more beneficial to potential future victims if our energies and monies were spent in identifying them and providing secure treatments where they can not pose a threat to society and society can be protected from them?

Comment by Dana (292dcf) — 12/18/2012 @ 8:52 am

Dana, I’d submit we know no such thing with any degree of certainty. Timothy McVeigh committed mass murder, including the mass murder of entire day care center full of children, when he blew up the Murrah federal building in OKC.

It’s a given that he wasn’t adjudicated to be insane as he was executed. Although to be objective about the case McVeigh did say he might have picked a different target had he known about the day care center. Not that he would have; just that he might have.

But others pick the most vulnerable precisely because they are the most vulnerable and their murder is therefore more shocking.

I give you Muslim terrorists.

Palestinian terrorists attempted to kill scores of school children they took hostage at the Netiv Meir elementary school in what became known as the Ma’alot massacre in Northern Israel in 1974. They succeeded in killing 22 and wounding 68.

The Chechens and Ingush terrorists did better (or worse depending upon your POV) when they killed nearly 400 people including 186 children at their own school hostage massacre in Beslan in 2004.

On a smaller scale, but still with a high enough body count to qualify as a mass killing, was the murder of a family of five in Itamar near Nablus in 2011. One fact that struck everyone was the fact that the months old infant escaped the Palestinian murderers’ notice until the baby began to cry as the killers were leaving. They went back and slit its throat.

What kind of person slits the throat of a baby less than a year old, Dana? I’ll tell you what kind of person; the kind of person the rest of the Palestinians call a martyr and a national hero.

I agree that in nearly all cases of mass murder, particularly school shootings in the US where the shooter may have planned out the commission of the crime but gave no thought to getting away (consequently these crimes either end in surrender or suicide as opposed to McVeigh’s subsequent arrest after fleeing the scene) can generally be traced to an untreated mental illness.

But not all. Some of these crimes are committed by perfectly sane but completely evil people for a reason. As heinous as that reason may be, it’s still a reason and thus not a senseless crime.

266. Most people who are and will be designated as “mentally ill” are not going to harm anybody, and their lives and freedoms are just as important as anyone else’s. Interning or “euthanising” them, or even just denying them the means of protecting themselves, would certainly make everyone else safer, since as a group their crime rate is significantly higher than the average; but exactly the same is true of black people. If we are to throw freedom out the window in the quest to be safer, then we should do both; if we are not, then we should do neither. Locking someone up, or leaving them defenseless, or denying them any other civil liberty, without their having actually done anything to warrant it, is very dangerous, and must be done only in the clearest cases where there’s significant evidence that that individual poses such a danger to others that we have no choice but to deprive him of his liberty, while doing everything we can to make it up to him (e.g. by providing a 24/7 bodyguard).

Comment by Milhouse (dabb58) — 12/19/2012 @ 6:08 am

Milhouse, you’ve already lost the argument. The fact is that it is already illegal for the anyone adjudicated to be a mental defective or committed to a mental treatment facility to own firearms.

So we’re not talking about all mentally ill people. We’re talking about a subset of these people.

Unfortunately unlike felons (a large percentage of whom also don’t pose a danger now that we’ve gotten around to criminalizing non-violent acts such as paperwork errors and business decisions) we don’t have a data base.

And what everyone who argues that we must avoid “stigmatizing” these people is that must never be a data base to identify these people who may not legally own a firearm.

In this sense, the “don’t stigmatize them” crowd is much like the “photo ID to vote is racist” crowd. We can’t take steps to prevent what is already illegal. Thus making it possible for people to simply lie in order to commit the illegal act and not get caught.

This isn’t conjecture. This happens all the time. There was a young lady in Utah who had been committed against her will for serious mental problems. But when she got out, due to confidentiality laws, she was able to pass the background check because there was no record of her commitment in any database the FBI could access.

Then she immediately went to a radio station that she was convinced was broadcasting details of her sex life and randomly shot (at) people, killing a woman in the lobby with no affiliation to the station.

And, yes, she was subsequently adjudicated to be a mental defective and thus not responsible for her actions.

So, are you saying this woman and others like her who do pose a threat to themselves and others should be able to slip through background checks?

If so, what is the reason that non-violent criminals should be denied weapons after serving their time, what used to be called “paying their debt to society?”

Steve57, those committed or adjudged incompetent are supposed to be added to the NCIC database for background checks. Its Federal law. States are very spotty about spending the money to move the records.

The fact is that it is already illegal for the anyone adjudicated to be a mental defective or committed to a mental treatment facility to own firearms.

The key word there being “adjudicated”. Now we’re talking about anyone that can be classified as “mentally ill”, which includes a lot of utterly peaceful people who are not aggressive at all, they just don’t quite live on the same planet as most of us. It also includes a lot of people who are dangerous, and need to be locked up or kept an eye on. But telling who is who is difficult to impossible, and it’s too easy to say just lock them all up, or disarm them all, who cares, they’re all weird anyway, and if we don’t then we can be guarantee that people will be hurt.

And my point is that the same thing is true of black people; a significant percentage of them are dangerous, we can’t easily tell which ones, and the “safe” option is to ignore their rights and disarm them all, or lock them all up, or even “euthanise” them as Michael has suggested for the “mentally ill”. If we don’t do that then we can pretty much guarantee that people will die as a result. And yet there’s no question that we must accept that. We can only deprive someone of his rights if we have specific evidence that makes it very likely that that individual is dangerous. And even then, we must make it up to him. And my point is that the same is true of the “mentally ill”. If someone has been adjudicated, in a proper judicial hearing where he got due process, to be too dangerous to arm, or too dangerous to walk the streets, so be it; but the standard of likelihood must be reasonably high, and they must be compensated. But without due process, or if the determination is merely that they’re “ill” but there’s insufficient evidence that they’re dangerous, then we must take the chance and leave them with their rights.

SPQR & Milhouse, I don’t believe we were ever talking about the mentally ill in general.

To say that’s the case is analogous to advocates of illegal immigration painting their adversaries as anti-immigrant in general.

This is just muddying the waters, and I’d say those who have been muddying the waters have done so successfully.

It would be entirely possible to maintain a database of the dangerously mentally ill. But states that don’t maintain that sort of list do so because they knuckle under to advocacy groups who insist that to do so would be to stigmatize all mentally ill people.

I am somewhat bemused by Ejercito’s non-sequitur of an argument; either you inter or euthanize the mentally ill or do nothing. Which is why I brought up the issue of felons. We don’t keep all of them locked up forever or kill them. It’s perfectly possible to let a felon out of prison after serving 3 or 5 or 10 years for whatever and keep them from buying guns legally.

Because no one is worried about stigmatizing them, no matter how little danger a person convicted of wire fraud in furtherance of a crime that they were found not guilty of poses to the community. If preventing gun stores from selling guns to the unqualified was so damned hard, as Ejercito seems to think, then we couldn’t afford to ever release a single felon from prison.

But it’s really not that hard. It’s pretty simple; it ought to be easier to compel someone to comply with mandatory outpatient treatment if they pose a danger, and to make the database of such people (as well, obviously, as those adjudicated to be mentally defective or who have been committed) available to law enforcement just the same as we make the database of others living under the no-guns disability available to law enforcement.

I don’t know when mental illness became a Constitutionally protected right. Undoubtedly it was about the same time NOW declared it a woman’s right to have a crack baby if she so chooses.

But it’s really got to stop.

And I’m not about to say that a mental illness ought necessarily be a permanent bar to gun ownership even if one is deemed at a certain point in time to pose a danger.

Clearly we want people to seek help. I don’t understand why a chemical imbalance in the brain that manifests itself as a mental illness, for instance, should be any more stigmatizing that a hormonal imbalance that manifests itself as some sort of physical illness. Or why someone should be stigmatized for realizing they need help coping with a traumatizing event. Or what have you.

If someone no longer poses a danger, then they ought to be able to exercise the full range of rights.

Steve57, I don’t necessarily endorse Milhouse’s criticism of you but I think your rhetoric may be going too far – whether or not you intended it.

I do agree that the way that society deals with the mentally ill is both outrageous and ridiculous. There is now a rumor going around that Lanza’s mother was attempting to have him committed. Hard to say how credible.

The problem with “out patients” is keeping them on their meds – they are notorious for just not taking them, or selling them to others for whatever.
In a perfect world, they would stay on their meds, and cope with any feelings of “numbness” (whatever) that results because they would have a rational belief that is the best course of action.
Unfortunately, underneath their behavior, is a lack of rationality (in most cases), so you’re back at square-one.

SPQR, I’m open to the criticism that my rhetoric may have gone to far, but I’d like to know in what way.

I do believe that, and I think I can demonstrate, that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of safeguarding certain individuals’ medical records when the fact of treatment (but not the details of treatment) should be available to law enforcement.

The 1999 case in Utah I mentioned earlier for instance concerned a Miss Lisa Duy. As she later told a psychiatrist while in custody for murder, she bought a handgun because the voices in her head were telling her to kill. She’ll probably never be well enough to be competent to stand trial for murdering a young mother in a lobby of a rock station.

But the fact that she had been committed by a judge to a mental institution for threatening an FBI agent ought to have showed up on someone’s radar. Certainly on the NICS check.

Gun section at Cabelas was doing land office business tonight. No. 3 and I took a number and browsed for an hour or so but it would have taken a minimum of 90 more minutes to get helped, so we headed home.

293. Steve, I have stopped criticizing the lady. Because I realized I did not know what I was talking about.

But, but, but … I had clients who wound up in prison because of lack of family support. I made a general conmment.

Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 5:36 pm

I’m sure you have had clients who wound up in prison because of lack of family support. I don’t doubt that for an instant.

Adam Lanza’s case in many respects bears out your observations. By his own admission, his brother hadn’t talked to him since 2010. Not that I think anyone should hold that against him. No doubt it was difficult growing up in that household.

Adam’s father divorced his mother after a long separation by all accounts. I find that more problematic.

So, yes, many family members did withdraw their support. Which is why I have a hard time blaming the last woman standing, so to speak. Adam Lanza wasn’t homeless, and no matter how many mistakes we in hindsight can accuse her of his mother didn’t stop trying to support him.

I imagine it was the surprise of her life to wake up dead at his hand.

Which is tempting, but then I’ve got a .54 ca. Hawken and I’ve never felt the need for a second shot. But (and there’s always a but) I got the flyer and looked at the website and noticed Pedersoli makes a .72 caliber muzzleloader double rifle and now I’ve started lusting after that. Why, I don’t know. T-Rex has been extinct for quite a while.

Truly, American shopping at its finest. Order a gun that can kill Godzilla online and have UPS deliver it.

The only thing that could make it better is if it came with its own Corvette Z06 to haul it around in.

askeptic @304, a really good gun bearer is nothing to sneeze at. Which is why the really good ones are spoken for. Although called gun bearers, and they will carry your rifle if you insist, they mostly track and they’re as brave as honey badgers. Going in unarmed into the thickest cover to see where your leopard or elephant disappeared to.

That is, if you convince them they can depend on your shooting.

I’ve given up on the idea the Ndebele Zulu are going to farm out a gun bearer to me, hence the need for a Corvette Z06 to haul my ordnance around. Don’t laugh. That’s what the guys in their lifted 4x4s did at my ‘stang until the realized as long as avoided the deepest ruts a torquey 5.0 V8, posi, and snow chains could take me just about anywhere they could go. Plus the fact it was a convertible and I could put the top down meant loading a quartered mule deer into it was a breeze.

Later after I sold it I went to the same places in a Honda Civic. True, I wasn’t loading any dead deer into it. But, man, you should have seen the look on the 44″ Super Swamper crowd when I just showed up.

308. And I will not spend a $1,000.00 on some soft-charcoal burner. I will take a Remington 700 in anything between .243 and .308.

Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 6:55 pm

Yeah, I understand. Up until this point I never have, either. All the muzzleloaders I have I bought as kits. The thing is, though, they’ve turned out to be pretty decent guns. At least in terms of reliability and doing what you can reasonably expect from them.

None of them have ever misfired. With equivalent open sights the Traditions Hawken groups about as well at 100 yards as my Win. M94 at the range and the big lead .54 cal. bullet kills better. My Pedersoli 10 ga. leaves nothing to be desired on game compared to a modern 12 ga.

My only other muzzle loader is a double barrel Pedersoli Howdah Hunter pistol in 20 ga. A fine small game gun, and if you had no other gun for self defense it would work. It’s intimidating as hell to look at from the muzzle end. Unless looking at the business end of a .60 plus caliber double barreled pistol doesn’t unnerve you.

Why would I call you an idiot for that? These days if you want a really good gun stock you’ve got to get the blank and do it yourself.

As I said, my muzzleloaders were kits. I sanded and filled and finished the oversize gun stocks until they married up as perfectly (not too tightly, not too sloppily) with the locks, barrels, buttplates, etc. Perhaps that’s why I’m somewhat attached to them. But then I did the the same thing with my SKB shotguns. SKB is short for SaKaBa, an old samurai family that went into the gun business after the emperor abolished the samurai business in the late 1800s. They build other makers guns to order, like the Weatherby line (much like the Japanese gunmaker Miroku builds Browning superposed shotguns).

They make a fine gun, but the shiny finish they put on the stocks will scare game two counties away. They may be shooters, but not hunters. I bought a couple of fancy walnut blanks from the (now defunct apparently) Yerba Buena stock company and made them mine (I attempted to refinish the factory stock set but ended up with a blistered mess).

I also second your desire to make sure that your daughter can defend herself. It’s just that I pitched up in some places around the globe where the only tool you’re likely to find to do so with is a musket, some black powder, and whatever is between your ears.

air guns….
We here in the good People’s Progressive Republik, have cities like Irvine, where the use (even in your garage) of air guns is Verbotten!
We’re not going to have any of that “enjoying yourself” crap here, not on my watch.

317. My father taught me to remove the barrels from the stock, remove the nipples, a bucket of hot water and soap, then pump the cleaning rod, with swabs up and down the barrels, like a siphon.

Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 7:54 pm

Black powder isn’t as hard to clean up as sometimes posited. Hot soapy water will do it. The hotter the water the better, especially when you rinse, because it evaporates before it can rust. Then some oil and you’re good to go.

Don’t clean your black powder gun and it can be rusted out in less than a week depending on where you live. Other than putting salt on your gun and leaving it by the beach I can think of nothing worse than not cleaning the black powder fouling off.

I never took the nipples off, though. I just submerged the breech end of the barrels (hooked breech barrels are easy to take off when you remove the wedge) into a bucket, poured hot soapy water into the barrels, then swabbed the barrels out and let the action work like a syphon like you said. I never had a problem, and I can still remove the nipples because there’s no rust.

I never used the stuff, I was afraid of it, but I should know how to spell its name.

Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 8:13 pm

Well, again, I wouldn’t say you’re an idiot. Especially not for remembering the name of a product you don’t use.

I used Pyrodex in my Ruger Old Army cap & ball revolver. Pyrodex “P” I believe it was for use in pistols. If memory serves if you used a measure it was equivalent in volume to black powder. But not in weight; if you measured your charges with a scale you had to do some sort of conversion.

Simpleton that I am, and not desiring to blow myself or anyone else up, I just found it easier to use black powder. Especially after I sold the Ruger. Which actually was a good, reliable revolver. And when you got done shooting you really could disassemble it, put the parts in the rack in your dishwater and run it on the pots & pans cycle and it would come out clean. The mirror finish on the exterior was a little cloudy after the first time, but oh well.

Tanny, a psychiatrist wrote “anti-social personality disorder” in my chart. It was a consult, at rehab, after my stroke. I am a lawyer, thirty years. A fellow patient laughed at him. The fellow patient said, “A lawyer with anti-social personality disorder?

The psychologist disagreed. She thought I had generalized anxiety disorder. Again, that’s why I stood up in court, in hundreds of cases.

Pyrodex is not non-corrosive, you still need to clean it well and promptly. Its advantage is that its not classified as an explosive like black powder so its easier to ship, and easier to store at retail under fire codes.

329. Pyrodex is not non-corrosive, you still need to clean it well and promptly. Its advantage is that its not classified as an explosive like black powder so its easier to ship, and easier to store at retail under fire codes.

Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/20/2012 @ 6:44 am

It was undoubtedly inappropriate of me to to imply that the differences between pyrodex and black powder could end up detonating someone or something.

I wasn’t being serious. I don’t know anyone who weighs rather than uses a volumetric measure to charge their muzzleloader. I suspect that anyone who weighs their black powder charge is reloading a cartridge rifle like a Sharps or a Trap Door Springfield. And if that’s the case, and they’re using a replica of black powder like Pyrodex, no doubt they know what they’re doing and need no advice from me.

I was making light of the fact that as an end user I never saw any advantage to using a replica of black powder as opposed to using just black powder itself. True, as you point out SPQR, Pyrodex like other smokeless powders is classified as a propellant and not an explosive.

But its not really any better at driving a bullet down a barrel than Goex.

if you’re in the southern Iowa area this afternoon I’ll be in the lobby of the Best Western and I will perform an interpretive dance memorial not just for sandy hook but for all the victims of gun violence

free coffee please join us for this powerful remembrance and bring your fave clippings and stay for scrapbooking after

Contrary to what the president claimed at his presser yesterday, the majority of Americans are not dead set on more gun control. The focus appears to be more wanting a general need for more comprehensive mental health screening and care.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Americans believe more action to treat mental health issues will do the most to prevent incidents like last Friday’s school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think stricter gun control laws will do the most to prevent such shootings, while 15% put the emphasis on limits on violent movies and video games. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.

The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on December 17-18, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

I didn’t hear him address mental health care, but perhaps I missed it. On a side note, apparently the scripts was for WH press corps to keep questions limited to gun control. Unfortunately for the administration, there are still some independent minds out there.

Dana – I thought I also saw some Rasmussen polling somewhere that said 86% focus on mental health issues, only 27% on more gun control. More Obama leading from behind.

I see many libs in my area getting overly excited and angry by watching too much death porn coverage of the Newton tragedy. IMHO, they need to take a look in the mirror and ask why they remain glued to the coverage.

Steve57, I have seen one other brand in recent years. I am not in my office right now and do not have access to my notes. However, it is/was not as common to find. If you want me to look around my sources email to me. my email address is my nick plus the letters “zilla” and the domain is netscape.net

Jonah Goldberg has a piece out this morning which echoes some of my frustrations about the natural feelings of sympathy arising from the tragedy and how translating those feelings into a need to do something, anything NOW, even if it results in a bone headed government response is wrong. I described that in another thread as a typical liberal response, because everybody knows people make the best decisions are made when they are highly emotional.

The good thing is in his usual dithering manner, Obama has sidelined the discussion by creating yet another commission. No political capital expenditures for him!

I would really like to be shocked at the thought of our president manipulating the truth to suit his purposes. But I never am.

It is vulgar of the administration to continue its non-stop tirade of politicizing such a tragedy. They should have shut their yammering dishonest mouths until at least after the last victim was buried. Out of respect and decency.

finds that 48% of Americans believe more action to treat mental health issues will do the most to prevent incidents like last Friday’s school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

More common sense than what comes out of the mind of, for example, the guy sitting in the Oval Office. In the case of people like him, one would need the most powerful of microscopes to detect whether any logic exists in the brain of such folks.

It’s not purely coincidental that over the past 50-plus years, the notion that the mentally unstable or incapacitated deserve their full, unbridled rights and the widest of socio-cultural latitude has grown in strength (thanks, ACLU!), while the other feel-good reaction of more anti-gun laws has also become far more common and accepted.

343.Steve57, I have seen one other brand in recent years. I am not in my office right now and do not have access to my notes. However, it is/was not as common to find. If you want me to look around my sources email to me. my email address is my nick plus the letters “zilla” and the domain is netscape.net

Comment by SPQR (046f7e) — 12/20/2012 @ 8:44 am

No big deal. I seem to recall seeing some black powder from Europe, Switzerland if memory serves, a while back. But not for a while.

I would like it if I had more than one source to buy black powder from, like I can get satisfaction out of Hodgdon 110 or Winchester 296 in my .44 Mag, but when you get down to the nitty gritty that’s just gravy.

“The National Rifle Association, while staying mostly quiet in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting in Connecticut, has registered an average of 8,000 new members a day since the tragedy, an NRA source told Fox News…”

353.Steve57, actually, H110 and WW296 is single sourced. Two brand names, same exact powder made by St Marks in Florida these days.

Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/20/2012 @ 10:22 am

Yeah, as soon as I submitted that comment I regretted it.

Probably the more accurate expression would be to compare the Reloder 22 and IMR 4350 in .416 Rigby. Either of which will keep you happy and, more importantly if you hunt something that bites back, alive.

nk, Colt’s is owned by a competitor to Cerberus in the Fund business – Zilkha & Co.
FN purchased both Browning and Winchester some years back.
Beretta owns Benelli, Franchi, SAKO, Stoeger, Tikka, Uberti, and the Burris Optics company.
Colt Defense was a primary supplier of the M4 for years, but has been replaced IIRC by Remington/Bushmaster.
The M9 (civilian designation: M92) pistol is the primary side-arm of the DoD, and is produced by Beretta in Accokeek MD, but Colt just received a contract for production of an updated version of the M1911-A1.

330.SPQR. 332. Steve57.
What really hurt is when I was in Mpls. at my sisters house. Sitting down to dinner, I asked them what kind of wood was under the black stain, and why was the wood beaten with a chain? It took every bone in my body not to flip out to this response- “It’s that walnut from the barn”. My great grandfather is still spinning.

Mental illness is specific to an individual with an individual diagnosis, and any comparison, and it is also disease.

Any diagnosis is meaningless, and is basically a legal [*] FICTION. It doesn’t predict anything.

[*] Yes, mostly a legal fiction. They exist for legal – and later provider payment – reasons. These are not real syndromes having a basis in objective reality.

A diagnosis of “stroke” or “concussion” would be more valid (if you purported then to tell specific characteristics about that person)

There, at least there is usually a very strong basis for suspecting some sort of injury has occurred, and the possibility of damage might be confirmable, but exactly what you can only tell by observation, one person at a time..there is no general syndrome.

Here, there is nothing but subjective prejudice and rigging the questions by careful testing, and using a carefully calculated point system to score, so that in the end different people will tend to describe the same person the same way.

That is reliability – but it is not validity, or truth. Reliability is the probability that the categorization has some meaning because different raters will put the person or thing rfated in the same category. Validity is the probability that the meaning or meanings or conclusions drawn from membership in that category is right.

We could call people other names and also get agreement – like who is a liberal or who is aconservative, or who is outgoing and who is not, but even if you isolated a real subset of people, it wouldn’t even mean that what that name meant – what that name could tell you about that person – was at all correct, especially if tried to go beyond whatever it was that produced the agreement. You end where you started off!

This will usually default to whatever bothers other people about that person the most. This does not make that characteristic a disease, or even a marker for a disease. Still less does it give it any typical pathology.

I think Congress should pass a law prohibiting bad things from happening.

They’re not that stupid. What they often do is pass a law mandating some regulation, or regulations, and/or authorizing some commission to write regulations, with the goal of preventing bad things from happening.

Dodd Frank, for instance in the field of banking.

The sequester, in the field of budgeting and deficits.

Creating a Department of Homeland Security in the field of terrorism and mostly federalizing airplane inspections.

Now President Obama has charged Joe Biden to spend a month coming up with things to prevent something like this from happened. He told him to consider good ideas – and also bad ideas, before dismissing them. Obama asserts we cannot prevent this completely but doing nothing is no good acceptable either.

I think Congress should pass a law prohibiting bad things from happening.

[Sammy replied:]They’re not that stupid. What they often do is pass a law mandating some regulation, or regulations, and/or authorizing some commission to write regulations, with the goal of preventing bad things from happening.

Yes they are, Sammy. Congress is that stupid. And Dodd Frank is a perfect example, because Congress thought it was passing a law that would just stop bad things from happening … and Dodd Frank probably makes it worse.

And having Joe Biden in charge … that’s f’ing hilarious.

Joe Biden was supposed to make sure that none of the stimulus money was wasted, remember “Sheriff Joe”?

Sammy, perhaps you don’t understand that this is the Age of Obama. Anything can happen if we put our minds to it. The President says he can stop the rise of the oceans.
Ok, cool. Then what’s stopping Congress from passing a law prohibiting bad things from happening ?

It could be very simply worded, “We, the Congress of the United States, by decree, hereby prohibit bad things from occurring.”The announcement could be accompanied by a couple of trumpet players, and the release of thirty doves into the great wide open. And free hot chocolate and bagels would be handed out to patriotic citizens in attendance. Maybe even some coloring books and balloons for the children.

We need to have a national conversation about Media control. By Renée Pseudonym Laggard

Well, its happened again – a school massacre takes place and the BSM jumps in with both left feet engaging in Assault Journalism with wall to wall coverage that glorifies the killer and encourages copycat attacks.

In their efforts to denigrate the people’s right of self-defence they promote and glorify the perpetrator, making them an instant celebrity in a world that has forgotten the difference between famous and infamous.

Perhaps we should discuss the possibility that it’s the Bull Stream Media’s fault in promoting these atrocities.

We all need to sit down and have a discussion of the role of the press in our society. Does it keep us safer? Or does it encourage more attacks putting more children in danger?

It is time to forget the politics of a free-press and instead think of the larger questions like the safety of our children.

We’re not talking about taking away the BSM’s First Amendment rights; we’re only talking about cutting the carnage brought about by Assault Journalism.

Does the BSM really need high-capacity magazines?

Does the BSM really need 5 minute clips?

The 1st amendment guarantees the freedom of the press but that isn’t an unlimited right by any means. The 1st amendment was written back in a time of printed media that traveled at the speed of a horse.

There is no way the founding fathers could have known how media technology would evolve.

These days the BSM can operate at the speed of light, with video cameras shooting at least 30 frames a second. They could not have envisioned high-capacity magazines that can shoot out reams of lies before they need to be reloaded with the next issue.

They could not have envisioned the private sale of Media outside the control of the government, private Media that could easily set off the next lunatic on a spree of carnage.

So, when is the best time to make sensible, pragmatic changes to our media law?

How about now?

And I’ll get us started:

We need a ban on High capacity magazines, there is no reason that Time or Newsweek to be more than 10 pages.

We need a ban on 5 minute news clips – there is no reason any one needs a clip longer than 5 minutes

We need to end private sales of Media – we need the government to control who can buy media and whether they have the mental capacity to consume such media.

We should make it a felony to purchase Media for those who can’t legally buy Media themselves.

We should have background check on all purveyors of Assault Journalism to close one of the major loopholes in our current Media law and make it harder for criminals and those with mental illness to engage in Assault Media.

Ensuring background checks on all Media personal would close one of the major loopholes in our current laws and make it harder for criminals and those with mental illness to gain access to Media microphones.

We should deny a Media permit for habitual offenders who have continually celebrated the murderers in these mass shooting outrages.

You can help if you have a device capable of receiving Assault Media; you need to turn it into the government right now.

We should put in place a national ban on assault journalism and have a serious review of Internet transmissions of large amounts of media.

And if the media fails to submit by these Common-sense measures We will need stricter penalties for those who refuse to abide by the provisions of the a new Assault Media Ban.

Renée Pseudonym Laggard is a founding member of Citizens Against Idiotic Mayors.

Just a final note: Journalist should take my sarcasm as a cautionary tale in that if you take to destroying one group’s Constitutional rights, don’t expect people to respect YOUR Constitutional rights.

The constraints on government put in place by our founding fathers either stand together – collectively if you will – or they fall together. Something you should keep in mind whilst you seek to eviscerate everyone’s right of self-defense.

They’re not that stupid. What they often do is pass a law mandating some regulation, or regulations, and/or authorizing some commission to write regulations, with the goal of preventing bad things from happening.

But never — NEVER! — underestimate the stupidity of the left, when it comes to just about any issue, topic, controversy, person, conflict.

The way so many liberals are reacting to the massacre in Connecticut and, in turn, weaponry reminds me of the way such people — in the even more loony-left environment known as Europe — have dealt with the following matter.

dailymail.co.uk, December 21, 2012:

Young female drivers will bear the brunt of new European rules which come into force today and could deliver a £300 increase to their average cost of car insurance. A change to the rules means it is now illegal for insurers to set prices according to gender – and young women are set to be hit hardest.

This is despite the fact that young females are statistically safe drivers – young men are twice as likely to suffer a serious collision, according to the AA. The motoring organisation also says that young men are 10 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash than those aged 35 or over. Historically, this has meant cheaper premiums for women and those with plenty of driving experience.

Female drivers between 17 and 25 pay an average of £1,247 for cover – but this is will rocket by 24 per cent, to £1,546. Other industry experts believe the changes could result in rises of anywhere between 10 to 40 per cent for young female motorists. Women aged between 31 and 35 are also likely to be hit, with a rise of around 10 per cent – £53 – a year.

The European Court of Justice’s ruling – which follows a ten-year legal battle against the proposals by insurers – will now put an end to women getting better deals on car insurance. Vice-President Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner, said: ‘Gender equality is a fundamental right in the European Union and the Court of Justice made clear that this also applies to insurance pricing.

^ That’s to auto insurance what Obamacare is to health insurance. And the EU is to Europe what the federal government (and, in particular, departments like the IRS) is to the US. And gun-control legislation is to crime.

If there were a battle between, say, the fanatics in the world of the European Union and the fanatics in the world of Islamism-Sharia-Law, I wouldn’t root for either side. I actually would hope to see both sides lose. That’s because in so many instances, in so many situations — and here in the Western World — liberal impulses in the human mind tend to make it surprisingly stupid.

On the one side we have gun owners and people knowledgeable about guns. 99.5% of whom do not commit crimes (and that figure is not off the mark if you examine crime stats). They know the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons, the latter of which are heavily regulated and figured in two murders since 1934. So automatic weapons are less of a threat in the US where they can be legally possessed if you jump through the hoops compared to Mexico where the drug lords use them on a daily basis despite the fact they’re completely illegal to privately own.

On the other hand, we have libtards like Soledad O’Brien. Who have convinced themselves that as long as they believe certain ridiculous things they’re good people.

They don’t have to be good people. They can shoplift or cheat on their taxes. But if their political beliefs are correct, all is forgiven. And one amongst those political orthodoxies they must cling to is the belief that guns are bad. And if they berate people who own guns into not owning guns fewer bad things will happen. Which makes just as much sense as other primitive superstitions such as throwing virgins into volcanoes will make the rains come and produce good harvests.

I know for a fact that my presence and the assumption I was armed stopped a robbery. I know this with as much certainty as is possible to have, given that the sheriff’s deputies investigating a serious of robberies at remote cabins in the Sierras mentioned it to me. That’s what the suspects told them when they were caught; they passed my place by because they figured I was armed.

They were right.

I don’t understand your thinking. So enlighten me. And not doubt others. Why is it that you think my firearm wasn’t useful simply because I didn’t drop the hammer on a primer?

Nightclubs and pubs post big burly MMA-looking dudes rather than Bob Costas or Woody Allen-looking dudes at the front door in order to discourage potential troublemakers.
The big burly dude is a visual deterrent, whereas Bob Costas is not a visual deterrent.

A criminal is going to zero in on homes or businesses in areas where he knows that a person is less likely to be a gun owner.
On the other hand, he’s less likely to zero in on a home or business if he speculates the occupant may be armed.

It is the proverbial ‘peace thru strength.’

Your premise that some of us have never used a gun to ward off an intruder or assailant therefore it proves there is no need for that gun is a faulty premise.
Indeed, the fact that we haven’t had to use the gun may be an indication that the potential robber or assailant was too apprehensive to attempt any funny business—and that’s the best outcome; where nobody gets hurt because nobody tried any funny business.

It is not just coincidental that the bad guys don’t attempt to rob a gun & ammo store or rob the local VFW Post. But it is part of their game plan to attempt to rob little old ladies and liquor stores in cities where there are really tight gun ownership laws.

A person necessarily help to make severely articles I might state. This is the first time I frequented your web page and to this point? I surprised with the analysis you made to create this particular post incredible. Excellent job!

Basically, I’m just wondering how many people are chocking up to a gun that which should be properly chocked up to sheer luck. Basically, I’m wondering how many of you are deluded by the exhilaration your toys afford you.

As I’ve said before, the confusion between the kind of semi-automatic rifles that are legal for sale to ordinary citizens in the US and fully automatic military issue weapons by gun control activists is intentional.

From a VPC paper:

The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

Even though these firearms are involved in a tiny fraction of all gun crimes, the gun control activists push the ban on these firearms as a deliberate tactic to confuse the general public.

Ha, ha, good point about atheists not suing Muslims.
I’m going out on a limb and guessing that the atheists’ apprehension about suing Muslims may be the same reason newspapers were generally afraid to publish the Mohammed cartoons several years ago.

Leviticus, the claim that gun crime is low in Britain is because there aren’t many guns around is an unsupported assertion. Gun crime was low in Britain before the British adopted any gun restrictions at all. And gun restrictions were initially adopted in Britain not in response to general crime, but in the ’30’s out of a panic from “Bolsevik” revolutionaries.

None the less, my point is not rebutted as you claim because the British have decided to initiate “routine patrols” by officers armed not with sidearms but fully automatic rifles.

Another side “benefit” of the Brits disarming their civilian population in the 20’s-30’s was that after Dunkirk, they had to appeal to U.S. gunowners to send them any arms that they could spare so that they could arm the Home Guard and Neighborhood Patrols in fear of a German Invasion.
The NRA led the donation effort to arm the Brits.
Very few, if any, of those arms were returned to their rightful owners after the conclusion of hostilities – most were destroyed.
Another lesson un-learned.

Yeah, that’s what I’d be afraid of. So after hooking up with her through her personal ad on Craigslist (using a fake name and a throw-away prepaid cell phone) and chaining her to the bed I’d have to retire to a local dive and try to bleach my mind with cheap tequila. Hopefully something mindless like the rerun of the last Winter Olympics curling final will be on TV.

Just the idea of faking it to get to that point with some feminazi with a BS in Policy Analysis & Management and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and a law degree initiates the gag reflex.

I’d be doing a public service. Think of all the taxpayer money that wouldn’t be spent on her birth control.

The least the taxpayer could do is subsidize my tequila. Or the fuzzy handcuffs I’d need to buy down at the kinky shop to make it all work.

‘Speaking of drunk, I look at Sandra Fluke or hear her talk and think to myself, “Man, I’ve never been that drunk.”’

Wish i could say that.

And, that’s one reason why we need our guns. At some point in your life, you might tie one on, wake up and find yourself next to a Flukelike object, and decide that suicide is your only honorable recourse.

425.“I don’t know what low regard the women in your life hold themselves in, but I’m not about to be slapped for calling a skank a skank.”

– Steve57

You should be slapped in the mouth for calling any woman any thing of the kind, is what I’m basically saying. I know it’s hard to see that through your misogyny-mist, but that’s what I’m saying.

Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 12/21/2012 @ 8:22 pm

Yeah, she went on the national stage and made her mother proud.

Seriously, Leviticus, I don’t know what sort of moral universe you operate in but it’s not mine. And the women I know are appalled at Mz Fluke and would be disappointed in me if I did not similarly find her appalling.

This may make sense to you when you sober up. But then maybe not.

Not all of America is onboard with the Democratic party “Sluts Vote” crowd.

Bye the bye, not making a distinction between that vulgar, disgusting Mz Fluke and decent women constitutes misogyny.

Anyone who can’t see the difference is the misogynist. And hardly has the moral authority to suggest someone else should be slapped in the mouth.

To treat Sandra Fluke with respect would be to say that a woman who regards herself as nothing better than a slut deserves to be treated no differently than those who do hold themselves in higher regard.

You fail to realize it, Leviticus, but you are in microcosm all that is wrong with society. You and your puritanical devotion to the abandonment of standards.

Bad news. Berkeley doesn’t have a similar law. Or if they do they don’t enforce it.

Has anyone else noticed that the aging hippy chicks who show up to “nude ins” to protest the Iraq or Afghan war are exactly the kind of women who should never be seen naked in public? Or in private during daylight hours. ever.

It’s almost enough to explain Islamic terrorism. Or at least the Hijab.

444. People will be more familiar with guns tomorrow than they are today.

Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/21/2012 @ 9:21 pm

I don’t see how that’s the case. Guns have been around a long time. I think it’s fair, and accurate, to say that no American alive today has ever been able to walk into a gun store and walk out a few minutes later with a legally purchased machine gun.

Yet the NYT, CNN, et al would have you believe this is an everyday transaction. Easier to pull off than renting a car.

Leviticus, she chose to attend a Catholic law school in order to force it to betray its deeply held principles.

That act, not just her statements, justify every contemptuous reference I’ve made toward her.

It’s just sort of the cherry on top that she has decided she has the right to make others pay her bills.

Again, when you sober up you may realize why you’re not getting support. She’s a contemptible creature, and to imagine she deserves respect is to insult every woman who doesn’t debauch herself and then make a Congressional issue out of it.

So sorry you think the women in your life are no worse than Sandra Fluke. Again, perhaps you should raise your sights.

And quit barking about misogyny and slapping people in the mouth as if you had some sort of moral authority to make those determinations.

The world was supposed to end today, but Barack Obama saved us from world destruction. Or something. To express our appreciation, we should turn in our guns, and consent to paying more taxes. We should compromise our principles by allowing the U.N. to dictate what television shows and YouTube videos we watch, and we should stop drinking 16 oz sized sodas. And instead of burning logs, or using heating oil, or consuming unnecessary electricity by using central heat or portable ceramic heaters, we should wear an old wool sweater that we bought from the Goodwill. Or whatever. Wait, that was Jimmy Carter. Same difference. I think I’m allergic to peanuts.

The world was supposed to end today, but Barack Obama saved us from world destruction.

It’s a new BLS metric. “Worlds saved or created.”

That schtick did wonders for Obama as he pretended he was a job creator, as the unemployment numbers every other President had to live with weren’t cooperationg. So he made up his own standards and filled in his own pretend numbers.

But, hey, why stop with unemployment! I have hunch that Obama is going to avert a number of mythological doomsday scenarios.

We should be up to at least five “Worlds saved or created” by the time Obama evades Ragnarok toward the end of his second term. All for a few lousy trillion dollars.

449. Colonel Haiku’s talking again. He must’ve finally dislodged Mitt Romney’s balls from the back of his throat.

Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 12/21/2012 @ 9:51 pm

This from the varmint who postures as the authority on polite conversation.

Leviticus, I’ve scraped things off the sole of my shoe that hadn’t exactly been worthy of respect but at least hadn’t confirmed they deserved the same lack of respect that Sandra Fluke has earned.

And I’ll let you know when you have an opinion worthy of consideration. So far you don’t.

Your juvenile instincts don’t amount to much, certainly not informed discussion. It’s amusing to have some self-unaware fool accuse me of misogyny while at the same time the same fool is accusing people of performing oral sex on a candidate.

Leviticus objects to gun violence before suggesting Steve should be slapped in the face, and then he objects to Sandra Fluke being called a “skank” only to turn around and make low-class Castro Street back alley innuendos about The Colonel and Mitt Romney.

For an encore, Timothy Geithner will lecture us about the immorality of tax avoidance, followed by The Obamas sharing their favorite ways to cut costs on air travel.

“This from the varmint who postures as the authority on polite conversation.”

– Steve57

It’s “respect for women” that I care about, dude – not polite conversation. “Polite conversation” is another thing entirely. I try (and often fail) at “polite conversation.” But I naturally care about respect for women. It’s the way my momma raised me.

Leviticus, you have a non-functioning moral compass. I don’t understand what filters you have to have in place to construe that anything I’ve said means women deserve less respect than men.

Some women, like some men, deserve no respect. I have zero respect for Patrick Moran, son of Rep. Jim Moran, who slammed his girlfriends head into a a garbage bin and broke her nose and her skull. And I’m sure as hell not going to sit through some lecture from Jim Moran about some Republican war on women while he uses his influence to help his kid evade the consequences of his assault.

By the same token I’m going to point and laugh at you when you pose as if you have the moral high ground on anything while you engage in your low-brow antics.

Especially when you take the ridiculous position that not respecting some tart like Fluke who makes a national issue of her sluttiness means you don’t respect women.

Only someone who has zero regard for women in general could possibly attempt to make the argument. But again it’s clear that your gutter instincts that you have somehow grown to imagine constitutes a respectable moral code will prevent you from comprehending that fact.

If it makes you feel better, I have as much respect for you and your mindless utterances as I do for Sandra Fluke and hers. It isn’t misogyny that compels me to express my contempt for you, Leviticus.

Steve, we know you’re not a mysogynist. He just likes to employ that tactic when he can’t think of a proper defense of his position.
But we should admit Leviticus is not explicitly a mysogynist—he hates everyone.

My take on Ms Fluke:
I actually don’t care that she wants to have a very active sex-life. She could hook-up with 20 guys a day, or the same guy 20-times a day….it wouldn’t matter to me.
What does matter to me is that she wanted her activity subsidized by someone (Georgetown, and by extension, the U.S. Taxpayer) to pay for her birth control – pills and/or condoms.
Now that chaps my a$$!
Big Time!

“Too bad your sense of honor dictates that men are worth more respect than women.”

Leviticus – I cannot begin to tell you about the respect Democrat women generated from me this year by wearing vagina costumes and holding up respect women signs. Do you adhere to Fluke’s vote with your Lady Parts, not your Lady Smarts philosophy?

467. Steve, we know you’re not a mysogynist. He just likes to employ that tactic when he can’t think of a proper defense of his position.
But we should admit Leviticus is not explicitly a mysogynist—he hates everyone.

Comment by Elephant Stone (65d289) — 12/21/2012 @ 10:47 pm

I just want to make my position clear. To not express contempt for Leviticus’ position would be an insult to those who have proven capable of actual intellectual achievement.

Just as to not express contempt for Mz Fluke would be an insult to women (and men) who’ve demonstrated higher moral character.

It would also mean that, like Leviticus, I’m incapable of telling the difference.

“I don’t need anyone contributing to the visuals I already have in my mind’s eye.”

Steve57 – He seems to have this obsession with butts and the kicking thereof that borders on the creepy that he has been adding to a bunch of threads. It must be a Greek thing. I thought I should toss it in there in his absence.

We’re talking about it because Steve57 said that Sandra Fluke should be gagged with several thousand dollars worth of condoms. I called that a hateful, trashy comment. He took exception and we went at it from there.

re: post #449… pipsqueak turd… my father passed away on Tuesday, December 4, 2012. We held a funeral service for him on Saturday in Orange Country and – to respect his wishes – then traveled to Springville, Utah to hold a graveside service and bury him in a beautiful setting at the base of the Wasatch Mountains.

His family and friends loved him very much and this will not be a Merry Christmas.

479. We’re talking about it because Steve57 said that Sandra Fluke should be gagged with several thousand dollars worth of condoms. I called that a hateful, trashy comment. He took exception and we went at it from there.

Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 12/22/2012 @ 7:47 am

Now that’s just an outright lie. I never said Sandra Fluke should be gagged with several thousand dollars worth of condoms.

I said that out of the several thousand dollars worth of condoms she thinks she’s entitled to have me and the rest of the taxpayers gift her with per annum a couple of handfuls ought to go toward shutting her up.

I have never suggested we should spend thousands of dollars to shove enough condoms in Sandra Fluke’s pie hole to shut her up. First of all I don’t know how many condoms that would take, although I’m convinced Mz Fluke has a firm grasp of how many condoms she can fit in her mouth at one time. So, after getting an accurate count from her, if we don’t let her do the shopping (apparently the condoms she prices near her fancy Georgetown residence are jewel-encrusted) the budget-minded could probably do the job for less than $50.

Apparently you think someone who wants to scrog her way through law school on the public dime is worthy of just as much respect as someone who dedicated her life to caring for the destitute in a Calcutta slum.

And it’s a sign of misogyny to draw a distinction.

But I’m curious; wouldn’t it be true to say that in your moral universe Mother Theresa doesn’t deserve the same respect Sandra Fluke does? After all, if we learned anything from code pink women are just walking life-suppport systems for lady parts and consequently are in dire need of abortions.

Sandra Fluke wisely accepts the suzerainty of the Democratic party because she’s come to grips with the reality of her situation. Mother Theresa, like Sarah Palin, has not. What’s worse, Mother Theresa’s religious order (the Missionaries of Charity) has been declared non-religious by the Obama administration and the Bishops are suing on their behalf.

The nerve! How dare a religious order founded to give hospice care to the dying try to get out of its patriotic duty to pay for Sandra Fluke’s contraceptives.

Which means what, exactly?
Everything on the hardware side was essentially developed over a century ago. All that has been done in the last few years is to polish the bells and whistles, but the same gun shoots the same bullet, at the same rate-of-fire, as what was available to those in the early years of the 20th-Century who could purchase a John Browning designed self-loading pistol, rifle, or shotgun.
The only things that have changed are the cosmetics, which many people find upsetting.
Well, I find the cosmetics of some of the new cars highly questionable too, but I’m not leading a crusade to ban them. Luckily, consumers will make that choice, and the makers will move on to some other line of styling when the current choices don’t sell.
In the gun business, the cosmetics that the gun-grabbers are upset with are just exactly what buyers want, and are grabbing (buying) off the shelves of retailers as fast as they can come off the UPS truck and be stocked on those shelves.
Since the firearms business has seen year-to-year growth unabated since the expiration of the AWB, and is exploding exponentially right now, it seems the American Public has made a choice about what they think they want and need.
In stable times, with reasonable decisions from government with minimal impact upon citizens, the average guy is satisfied with that old six-round revolver that Gramps gave him in his will.
In times of indecision and turmoil, not so much.
The current mania to buy as much hardware and supplies as possible is a creation of our political class, either through malfeasance, misfeasnce, nonfeasance, or outright lies.
And, we don’t like it!

It would cost many billions to buy back all the firearms that Democrats want to ban. The AR15 alone has been sold in the millions to American gun owners. Some of those were in configurations that would comply with the expired Federal “Assault Weapons” ban.

Heck, there are even versions of the AR15 that comply with California’s far more strict ban … bwaaahaaahaaa.

“Apparently you think someone who wants to scrog her way through law school on the public dime is worthy of just as much respect as someone who dedicated her life to caring for the destitute in a Calcutta slum.

And it’s a sign of misogyny to draw a distinction.”

– Steve57

Nice false dichotomy you’ve got there. “Sandra Fluke is not Mother Theresa, so she must be a skanky slut!” I’m sure all the not-Mother-Theresa women in your life appreciate that sentiment.

1) Respect isn’t a zero-sum game. Having respect for Mother Theresa doesn’t mean you have to have disrespect for Sandra Fluke. You know that Sandra Fluke spent a lot of her time and energy working to protect victims of domestic violence, right? How does that figure into your account of the woman?

2) It’s not a sign of misogyny to draw a distinction between Sandra Fluke and Mother Theresa. It’s a sign of misogyny to call Sandra Fluke a “vulgar, disgusting skank/slut who should be gagged with condoms” simply because she testified about the (non)availability of subsidized birth control at Georgetown.

Seriously, dude: what did Sandra Fluke say that offends you so much? QUOTE HER. You’re not offended by her; you’re offended by a slanderous caricature of who she is and what she stands for, promulgated by a hypocritical moron who should’ve faded into obscurity years ago.

Here’s a statement from Georgetown University – the institution Steve57 claims was wronged by Sandra Fluke, and on whose behalf he disingenuously claims to be offended:

“In recent days, a law student of Georgetown, Sandra Fluke, offered her testimony regarding the proposed regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services before a group of members of Congress. She was respectful, sincere, and spoke with conviction. She provided a model of civil discourse. This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people. One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression.

And yet, some of those who disagreed with her position – including Rush Limbaugh and commentators throughout the blogosphere and in various other media channels – responded with behavior that can only be described as misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.”

We are offended that she voluntarily asked to go to Georgetown, and then thought that their policies were repugnant and had to be changed to something that would violate their basic religious beliefs (you do remember that Georgetown is a Roman-Catholic university, don’t you?),
instead of just removing herself – but of course, her decision to go there was just to challenge the core beliefs of the Roman-Catholic Church.
She then flaunted her sexual escapades as requiring the school to supply her with BC, on their dime, and lied about what the cost was.
She has proven by her own words that she is not a “lady” and deserves no respect that would be extended to same.
She is just another in a long line of political activists who will say and do anything to advance the narrative;
for, the ends (to them) always justify the means.
Oh, and it’s part-and-parcel with the same pile of crap that Obama slung in his “defense” of Susan Rice:
Don’t pick on her, come after me.
Well, when women want to play in the “boy’s game”, they get to play by the “boy’s rules”.
Otherwise, it might be better to just stay in the kitchen and bake some cookies.

Here’s a statement from Georgetown University – the institution Steve57 claims was wronged by Sandra Fluke, and on whose behalf he disingenuously claims to be offended:

“In recent days, a law student of Georgetown, Sandra Fluke, offered her testimony regarding the proposed regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services before a group of members of Congress. She was respectful, sincere, and spoke with conviction. She provided a model of civil discourse. This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people. One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression.

And yet, some of those who disagreed with her position – including Rush Limbaugh and commentators throughout the blogosphere and in various other media channels – responded with behavior that can only be described as misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.”

Not being RC, I don’t have to grant Georgetown’s words any more credibility than the denials of pedophilia that were spewed by various Cardinals, Arch-Bishops, etc, and the Vatican.

What is, is what it is.
And Ms. Fluke has quite amply demonstrated what she is and the manner in which she wishes to conduct herself, and receives the degree of respect that her views and actions deserve.

““Leviticus, its not a caricature of Fluke to note that she expected others to pay for the costs of her recreational sex.”

– SPQR

Nope. But it’s a slanderous caricature to call her a skank, or a slut, or a prostitute.”

Actually it isn’t slanderous since it logically follows from her implication that the costs of her recreational sex are so high as to be a financial burden that she requires Congressional intervention …

“In recent days, a law student of Georgetown, Sandra Fluke, offered her testimony regarding the proposed regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services before a group of members of Congress. She was respectful, sincere, and spoke with conviction. She provided a model of civil discourse. This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people. One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression.

And yet, some of those who disagreed with her position – including Rush Limbaugh and commentators throughout the blogosphere and in various other media channels – responded with behavior that can only be described as misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.”

So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture.

Who the **** is dodging Georgetown’s words? I largely blame nominally Catholic institutions for their own destruction. I mean, if Notre Dame is going to promote a rabid abortionist like Obama how can Notre Dame pretend to be surprised when he has his administration write regulations compelling them to comply with his pro-abortion pro-contraceptive pro-sterilization agenda?

When you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas.

Even the Pope has noticed that a large proportion of the crowd walking around calling itself Catholic isn’t noticably Catholic.

..
Rome —
New Vatican rules will not compel Catholic charities around the world to renounce government money, officials both in the Vatican and in leading church-run agencies say, insisting that the main aims are a stronger sense of Catholic identity, including a more direct relationship with bishops, and greater financial transparency.

Experts add, however, that part of the background to the new rules is alarm among some church leaders about the influence of secular organizations that fund charitable work, including some United Nations agencies, while also promoting a liberal social agenda on matters such as contraception, abortion and gay rights.

Over time, observers say, that concern could herald a more cautious approach to collaboration with those organizations by Catholic agencies.

Since the document calls on local bishops to exercise greater vigilance over charitable activity, observers also caution that its practical impact will likely be determined on a case-by-case basis at the local level.

Reaction among leaders in Catholic charities has tended to accent the positive, praising the document’s strong endorsement of charitable service and its call for good financial management.

Published on Dec. 1, the new rules came in the form of a motu proprio, meaning a legal decree under the personal authority of the pope. Among other points, Pope Benedict XVI stipulates:
• A charitable group may call itself “Catholic” only with the written consent of church authorities. If a particular agency is deemed to be no longer “in conformity with the church’s teaching,” the bishop should make that known and take steps to prevent it from using the title “Catholic.”
• Personnel must “share, or at least respect” the Catholic identity of church-affiliated charitable organizations, and must also “give an example of Christian life” beyond their professional competence.
• A Catholic charity may not take money “from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to the church’s teaching.”
• To avoid leading people “into error or misunderstanding,” bishops are to ensure that parishes and dioceses don’t publicize initiatives that, “while presenting themselves as charitable, propose choices or methods at odds with the church’s teaching.”
• Church-run charities are to practice sound money management and to offer a “witness of Christian sobriety” in the way their resources are administered, including keeping salaries and expenses “proportionate to analogous expenses of other diocesan offices.”

I expect that whoever’s in charge of Georgetown would have wonderful things to say about Nancy Pelosi.

And if that’s the case I wouldn’t give whoever’s in charge of Georgetown the time of day.

This is the wider point, liberals like Menino and Daley, will only give you the time of day, when you surrender your principles as with Chic a Fil, It’s not a coincidence that fluke was being represented
from the outset by S.D. Knickerbocker, which waged two other campaigns against women, Ann Romney, with Hillary Rosen, and repping, that slanderous caricature ‘Julianne’s Bender’ aka Game Change,

“Actually it isn’t slanderous since it logically follows from her implication that the costs of her recreational sex are so high as to be a financial burden that she requires Congressional intervention …”

– SPQR

Her remarks before Congress say nothing whatsoever about her sexual habits. Here’s a transcript.

And here’s the gist:

“On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.

And so, I’m here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them – not me – to be heard.“

“And if that’s the case I wouldn’t give whoever’s in charge of Georgetown the time of day.”

– Steve57

So, then, what did Sandra Fluke do wrong, again? Cuz you said that the problem was that she attended Georgetown with the intent of making it do something against its religious-institutional principles. Now you say that Georgetown doesn’t really adhere to those principles to begin with. So what’s the problem?

Give Obama a foot, he will take a mile, his goal is what he proposed back in Illinois, in 1999, barring any gunshop within 5 miles of any school, he will settle for most things short of that. It’s what he wrote, and talked upon for 20 years, It’s a monologue, where every opponent in abetter of massacres,

Right, Leviticus. She’s like the girl who shows up at the doctor’s office to talk about “her friend” who suspects she might have caught a venereal disease.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter a whit if she was talking about herself or other nameless faceless individuals who are attending pricey law schools that need a public subsidy for birth control.

All you need to know about her is that if she wants something she has no problem demanding someone else pay for it.

Again, if it makes you feel better I am perfectly willing to concede that Mz Cornell B.S. in Policy Analysis & Management, Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies 2003 probably doesn’t have a very lively sex life. Who’d want to put up with the crap?

One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression.

LOL. Notice the word “substantive” snuck into that bit of PR. So if Fluke’s position weren’t of a liberal bent — if it weren’t so beautifully socialistic — the writer of the handout probably would have penned:

“One need not agree with her position*, and we support her right to respectful free expression, but she and those who oppose her** need to tone down the rhetoric*** and find common ground.”

* For example, publicly promoting traditional marriage and disapproving of single motherhood

514.“And if that’s the case I wouldn’t give whoever’s in charge of Georgetown the time of day.”

– Steve57

So, then, what did Sandra Fluke do wrong, again? Cuz you said that the problem was that she attended Georgetown with the intent of making it do something against its religious-institutional principles. Now you say that Georgetown doesn’t really adhere to those principles to begin with. So what’s the problem?

Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 12/22/2012 @ 10:41 am

I’m having trouble identifying what it is exactly you claim to find so mystifying.

There’s nothing contradictory about pointing out that Sandra Fluke demanded a nominally Catholic institution abandon Catholic teaching and observing that said nominally Catholic institution didn’t have the courage of its convictions when challenged.

There is a link, Leviticus, between the fact that Georgetown can praise Sandra Fluke and the fact that the Pope feels compelled to issue an ultimatum to supposedly Catholic institutions to straighten up and fly right or quit the pretense that they’re Catholic so they stop damaging the brand.

“I’m having trouble identifying what it is exactly you claim to find so mystifying.

There’s nothing contradictory about pointing out that Sandra Fluke demanded a nominally Catholic institution abandon Catholic teaching and observing that said nominally Catholic institution didn’t have the courage of its convictions when challenged.”

– Steve57

What I find mystifying is the fact that you looked at “Sandra Fluke demanding that a nominally Catholic institution abandon Catholic teaching” and found grounds to call her a “skank” and a “slut” without any indication of any sexual promiscuity on her part.

Sandra Fluke is as unimportant and as immaterial as a single grain of sand on a beach or a drop of rain in a monsoon. She is a self-promoting, created out of whole cloth, fake “celebrity” who managed to secure for herself a gig at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Her “offering” to testify before congress is no more or less meaningful than had any other American citizen “offered to testify” before congress on any subject whatsoever. Sandra insults my intelligence and wastes all our time by speaking out as if a lack of insurance coverage for birth control product is a premier, critical and leading edge issue of this and any other time.

“On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.
And so, I’m here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them – not me – to be heard.“

Oh please! It offends me that anybody still even gives her the time of day–and that includes those who seek to defend her and those who will always villify her. Please just stop. She’s had way more than her 15 minutes.

elissa, I agree with you about the unimportance of Sandra Fluke, the individual.

But it’s a grave mistake to ignore the phenomenon. The Democratic party did see fit to turn her into an icon.

She typifies an illness that liberals have embraced. She promotes it on behalf of the Democratic party. Leviticus has embraced it, too, which is why it’s amusing to me that he demands I make some sort of case against Sandra Fluke the individual. He’s missing the forest for the trees.

I’m also amused by the fact he thinks that because Georgetown can’t defend Catholic theology then it’s somehow alright for Sandra Fluke to demand they repudiate it.

As if I’m supposed to ignore the fact that the Vatican has of late been laying into nominally Catholic institutions for abandoning Catholic doctrine and instead embracing faddish social trends.

I mentioned earlier the ultimatum the Pope issued to supposedly Catholic charities that are no longer very Catholic. The Vatican issued a similar order earlier this year to the Leadearship Conference of Women rReligious. A group of nominally Catholic nuns who aren’t so much discerably religious as opposed to just being lefist feminists in habits.

True to form, the has declared it will defy the Vatican if it interferes with the LCWR’s “mission” of promoting Obamacare, abortion, and gay marriage. Which tells you were their true loyalty lies; they belong to the Church of Government.

I suppose if they came out with statements of support for Sandra Fluke then Leviticus would cite that as some sort of doctrinal authority validating her opinion. Even though the Vatican has declared them to be essentially a rogue outfit that has abandoned age-old Catholic doctrine.

Sandra Fluke isn’t important. But the fact she could shamelessly become the standard bearer for societal rot masquerading as progress is important.

Pope Benedict in his previous incarnation, did his best, to block that, but it’s like with fmr Guerillas (Rousseff) associates of same (Kirchner)
secret members of said organizations (Chavez) they’re hard to get rid of entirely.

1. Liberation theology is a phenomenon with an extraordinary number of layers. There is a whole spectrum from radically marxist positions, on the one hand, to the efforts which are being made within the framework of a correct and ecclesial theology, on the other hand, a theology which stresses the responsibility which Christians necessarily hear for the poor and oppressed, such as we see in the documents of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) from Medellin to Puebla. In what follows, the concept of liberation theology will be understood in a narrower sense: it will refer only to those theologies which, in one way or another, have embraced the marxist fundamental option.

Liberation theology is a heresy (and consequently Obama is not a Christian as his apologists insist but a heretic, as the black liberation theology he subscribes to blatantly makes religion subservient to leftwing ideology and promoting “the cause of blackness.”) But it’s a heresy with a purpose, and its own orthodoxies.

Liberation theologists will insist you can’t be a good Christian unless you adopt the proper stance on land reform, wealth redistribution, rent control, etc. In other words, unless you adopt all the political orthodoxies of the left and make everything political. And concede everything to government.

This is why universities like Notre Dame and Georgetown are piss poor defenders of the faith, Catholic Charities is no longer Catholic, and the LCWR is actually willing to publicly break with the Vatican if forced to choose between Catholic theology and abortion. Because the infection of Liberation theology has become deeply rooted over time.

But it seems like the Pope remains serious about correcting this massive error, so hopefully these Catholic institutions will get new leadership that actually is unwilling to be coopted.

Thanks for the correction.
I also remember that it was John Paul II who spoke out, and initiated some excommunications too, against some of the more radical adherents of LT.

This also goes to the timidity the Church in America has shown towards denouncing the abortion positions of R-C pols, and allowing them to partake in the Sacraments as if what they are doing in their public-life completely comports with the beliefs they profess in private.

If the Church is to have any credibility, it needs to excommunicate a few (more) people.

It’s painful to watch. Soledad just is incapable of processing reality. She actually repeats Lott’s points as if by so doing she’s contradicting Lott’s points. (Lott says all these mass shootings have one thing in common; criminals who commit murder in gun free zones. Soledad says they have one other thing in common; heavily armed criminals who commit murders in gun free zones, as if that’s a gotcha.)

This is important to note, as Biden said something very revealing during the campaign. He told people to vote for whomever they felt they could trust. Low information voters/reporters like O’Brien divide the world between well-meaning liberals like Obama/Biden and Republican meanies like Romney/Ryan and now Lott.

It saves people like her the trouble of sorting through complex things like facts. I recall a friend of mine who is a former reporter/editor for a major west coast daily paper (he eventually couldn’t stand working with people like O’Brien). He said that reporters aren’t consciously biased about issues like gun control. They think they’re getting both sides, but they assume they can trust the the well meaning liberals at the Brady bunch and that the Republican meanies at the NRA are lying to them. So they’ll interview some rep from the NRA, but always give the last word to the gun control advocates that they turn to get what they consider the truth on the matter.

It’s important, then, to understand that we shouldn’t get bogged down with facts. Bill Clinton knows the difference between a rifle and a shotgun, but if he can sell his 1994 Assault Weapons ban to the Soledad O’Briens of the world by saying nonsense like “you don’t need a machine gun to hunt ducks” then that what he’ll do.

Wesley Clark knows that a civilian AR-15 or M-4gery is not the same thing as a military, full auto M-16 or M-4. But he knows that Soledad O’Brien doesn’t know that and he’ll do his best to keep her confused (not hard to do, as the video demonstrates). Some pundit who knows better can tell her that it’s easier to buy a machine gun than to rent a car and Soledad O’Brien will believe him.

And people go to news outlets that employ the Soledad O’Briens of the world for their information.

That’s the shape of the playing field this “conversation” will play out on.

“On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.

What she omitted is that students could waive having to be insured through Georgetown by having other insurance. The checklist for a substitute insurance plan did not include an exclusion of coverage for birth control.

Amazingly, when I brought it up on the Volokh Conspiracy, others said this was not enough, that the premier plan should cover birth control.

540. I also remember that it was John Paul II who spoke out, and initiated some excommunications too, against some of the more radical adherents of LT.

Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict was JPII’s point man on that issue.

This also goes to the timidity the Church in America has shown towards denouncing the abortion positions of R-C pols, and allowing them to partake in the Sacraments as if what they are doing in their public-life completely comports with the beliefs they profess in private.

If the Church is to have any credibility, it needs to excommunicate a few (more) people.

Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/22/2012 @ 2:05 pm

What pols like Nancy Pelosi are committing is a worse theological crime than heresy. Heresy is when an individual breaks with Catholic doctrine and personally sins.

What Pelosi and other Catholic pols (as well as prominent public personalities like Maria Shriver) promote is scandal. They may not personally commit the sin (and which is why it’s irrelevant how Fluke personally conducts her life) but they encourage others to do so. In fact, Pelosi goes beyond the typical garbage about being personally opposed to abortion but not “imposing” her morality on others. She makes grand pronouncements about how Catholic teaching on abortion only evolved over the past 50 years since the invention of the pill, and in any case isn’t clear on when life begins and thus has no bearing on her support for Roe v. Wade.

You can not be Catholic and believe those things. You can not be Catholic and advocate those things, and encourage others to believe them. Since the founding of the Catholic Church the doctrine on abortion has been very clear. It is intrinsically evil and to procure or participate in abortion is a mortal sin.

Unfortunately the Church in the US is too addicted to public money to protest too loudly or even to articulate what actually is the Church’s doctrine on the matter.

But, yeah, if they don’t excommunicate more people they can’t be taken seriously. The Church excommunicated every Catholic pol or Catholic advocate of Uruguay’s abortion law a couple of years back. They need to do the same here.

They may not personally commit the sin (and which is why it’s irrelevant how Fluke personally conducts her life) but they encourage others to do so. In fact, Pelosi goes beyond the typical garbage about being personally opposed to abortion but not “imposing” her morality on others. She makes grand pronouncements about how Catholic teaching on abortion only evolved over the past 50 years since the invention of the pill, and in any case isn’t clear on when life begins and thus has no bearing on her support for Roe v. Wade.

There is a lot wrong with Pelosi, but can you name one individual, just one whom Pelosi counseled to have an abortion? (We are assuming the abortion is for elective reasons like wanting to fit into a dress in time for the prom.)

It is intrinsically evil and to procure or participate in abortion is a mortal sin.

There is a lot wrong with Pelosi, but can you name one individual, just one whom Pelosi counseled to have an abortion?

Why would that even be necessary? Her public stance on abortion and her public pronouncements misleading others about Catholic doctrine in order to make it appear that abortion is in keeping with the teachings of the Church constitutes scandal.

As the US Conference of Bishops put it:

“We urge those Catholic officials who choose to depart from Church teaching on the inviolability of human life in their public life to consider the consequences for their own spiritual well being, as well as the scandal they risk by leading others into serious sin. We call on them to reflect the grave contradiction of assuming public roles and presenting themselves as credible Catholics when their actions on fundamental issues of human life are not in agreement with Church teaching. No public official, especially one claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can responsibly advocate for or actively support direct attacks on innocent human life…No appeal to policy, procedure, majority will or pluralism ever excuses a public official from defending life to the greatest extent possible.”

No Catholic institution is supposed to give any pro-abortion politician (Catholic or not) public honors or invite them to speak at events.

Yet Notre Dame has twice invited Obama to speak on Campus, and has given him an honorary degree.

When nominally Catholic institutions give their stamp of approval to pro-abortion politicians, when nominally Catholic politicians can lie about Church doctrine and remain Catholics in good standing, then they allow people to get the impression that abortion is like other issues where Catholics are allowed to disagree.

Her public stance on abortion and her public pronouncements misleading others about Catholic doctrine in order to make it appear that abortion is in keeping with the teachings of the Church constitutes scandal.

Agreed, just as it would be scandalous for Paul Ryan to misrepresent Catholic doctrine to sanction the worship of St. Mary.

Yet Notre Dame has twice invited Obama to speak on Campus, and has given him an honorary degree.

Was Obama invited onto campus to speak in favor of abortion or idol worship or any other sin?

Michael, it doesn’t matter what he was to speak about. There isn’t an exception to the rule that it’s OK for Catholic entities to invite pro-abortion politicians to speak or to give them public honors as long as they refrain from promoting abortion on that particular occasion.

They aren’t supposed to promote these politicians at all or give them a public platform so they can promote their own candidacies and policies, as long as they remain pro-abortion.

Meanwhile, in my state, the “instant check” background check system is backlogged three days from all the gun buying going on.

The local Democrats are bragging about how many gun bans they are going to introduce into the legislature. I figure every one is at least two state legislature seats that will switch from Democrat to GOP next election. There are literally thousands of people waiting in line and every one of them is going to vote against the legislators that vote for new gun control bills.

The gun control groups have already shown that they can’t get people to go to the voting booth. But the NRA can.

There isn’t an exception to the rule that it’s OK for Catholic entities to invite pro-abortion politicians to speak or to give them public honors as long as they refrain from promoting abortion on that particular occasion.

WASHINGTON, June 21, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United States of Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has adopted a statement, “Catholics in Political Life,” by a vote of 183-6, which says pro-abortion politicians should not be honored by Catholic community and Catholic institutions. “They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions,” says the statement. On the question of withholding Communion from pro-abortion politicians, the document leaves the final decision to local bishops.

And frankly they didn’t go far enough, as Pope Benedict XVI issued a letter (as Cardinal Ratzinger) directing that pro-abortion Catholic politicians be denied Communion prior to the ruling by the USCCB.

2. The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin. The Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, with reference to judicial decisions or civil laws that authorise or promote abortion or euthanasia, states that there is a “grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. […] In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propoganda campaign in favour of such a law or vote for it’” (no. 73). Christians have a “grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. […] This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it” (no. 74).

3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

4. Apart from an individuals’s judgement about his worthiness to present himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin (cf. can. 915).

5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

So if the USCCB were as Catholic as they claim they wouldn’t leave it up to individual bishops to make the determination of whether or not to deny Pelosi, Biden, and all the other nominally Catholic pols with a 100% rating from NARAL communion. The Pope already laid down the law in that regard; they must be denied.

Oh, this part bears repeating.

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.

I don’t know what your problem is, but for some reason you seem to be on a tear to make Paul Ryan out to be just as lousy a Catholic as Pelosi.

He isn’t. Nothing Ryan has ever said or done (or proposed doing) comes anywhere close to the heresies that Pelosi and those like her promote as public policy.

It is amusing that you find it hard to believe that the Roman Catholic Church actually has rules about Catholic institutions actually abiding by RCC doctrine.

I don’t know what your problem is, but for some reason you seem to be on a tear to make Paul Ryan out to be just as lousy a Catholic as Pelosi.

He isn’t. Nothing Ryan has ever said or done (or proposed doing) comes anywhere close to the heresies that Pelosi and those like her promote as public policy.

I did not; I never claimed in my post that Ryan promoted idolatry. I wrote that it would be scandalous if he did. Had I had reason to believe he did such a thing, I would have written, “It was scandalous.”

There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

Sometimes wars cause abortions.

Is there a moral difference between killing a baby with a stainless steel scalpel and killing a baby using a wedge-shaped piece of uranium?

understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws)

Well, Michael, that’s why I wrote that was what you seemed to be driving at.

Which wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility. The angry Catholic left tried to paint Ryan as a heretic due to his budget plan.

If you recall they denounced him for claiming that his budget plan was informed by Catholic social justice teaching.

This is the unhinged left for you. Catholic catechism teaches that there is no specific means to achieve social justice goals, as the bishops who defended Ryan pointed out. Bishops have no claim to infallibilty when it comes to public policy. You can disagree with Ryan, but you can’t call him a bad Catholic for proposing a budget that shrinks Leviathan.

But that’s exactly what the religious left did. They ignore the churches teachings on abortion to give nominally Catholic pols like Pelosi or Biden a pass on what is an intrinsic evil and grounds for excommunication, and then ignore the church’s teaching on social justice to denounce Ryan for supposedly straying from a doctrine that the RCC doesn’t actually have.

This fundamental dissent from a basic church teaching is now a fact of modern Democratic Catholic life. The result for our politics is an extraordinary campaign, in the 10 days since Paul Ryan became the Republican candidate for vice president, by those on the Catholic left to strike a moral equivalence between Mr. Ryan’s reform budget and Democratic Catholic support for the party’s absolutist position on abortion.

Thus the column in the National Catholic Reporter characterizing Mr. Ryan as a “champion of dissent” regarding the church’s social teaching. Or the headline at the website Jezebel, “Badass Nun Says Paul Ryan is a Bad Catholic.” When this sort of thing seeps into the mainstream, it takes the form of the recent article in the Washington Post that found moral parallels between the two vice-presidential candidates: Mr. Ryan is a dissenter from “social justice,” while Vice President Joe Biden, also Catholic, dissents on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.

Once upon a time, Catholic Democrats would explain away their position with the Mario Cuomo-inspired halfway apology: They were “personally opposed” to abortion but unwilling to do anything about it. These days we have moved to the full Nancy: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s complaint that Catholics need to overcome their “conscience thing” regarding abortion.

As for Mr. Ryan, what drives progressives bonkers is that he insists on talking about spending in terms of promises made to the American people. In this sense, “Can we pay for it?” is a moral as well as practical question.

Manifestly some bishops do not like Mr. Ryan’s answers. Then again, Catholic social teaching itself holds that the bishops possess no special competence on the subject. Applying the principles of Catholic social teaching involves prudential judgments that are the special province of Catholic laymen and laywomen.

Mr. Ryan’s own bishop, the Most Rev. Robert C. Morlino, addressed the subject with his most recent column in the diocesan paper for Madison, Wis. The church, he wrote, regards abortion as an “intrinsic evil” (meaning always and everywhere wrong, regardless of circumstances). In sharp contrast, he said, on issues such as how best to create jobs or help the poor, “there can be difference according to how best to follow the principles which the church offers.”

“I’m not endorsing Paul Ryan,” the bishop told me later by phone. “People are free to disagree with him, and disagree vehemently. But it’s wrong to suggest that his views somehow make him a bad Catholic.”

Unfortunately, suggesting that Mr. Ryan is a bad Catholic is the entire case.

The religious left tried various means to paint Paul Ryan as just as bad a Catholic as Pelosi; trying to draw all sorts of false equivalences.

For instance, he was a bad Catholic because he read Ayn Rand. Which is equally ridiculous.

It appeared to me from your posts that you might have been making the “Paul Ryan is a bad Catholic” case from an angle that I hadn’t seen before. But as I said, that’s how it seemed. I wasn’t sure, so I mentioned it.

And yes, there is a moral difference between intentionally killing a child via abortion and killing a child during an act of war. One is the intentional attempt on an innocent life, the other isn’t.

“If the Christian Religion forbade war altogether, those who sought salutary advice in the Gospel would rather have been counselled to cast aside their arms, and to give up soldiering altogether. On the contrary, they were told: ‘Do violence to no man . . . and be content with your pay’ [Luke 3:14. If he commanded them to be content with their pay, he did not forbid soldiering.”

The church, he wrote, regards abortion as an “intrinsic evil” (meaning always and everywhere wrong, regardless of circumstances).

with

And yes, there is a moral difference between intentionally killing a child via abortion and killing a child during an act of war.

The argument that abortion is wrong wholly springs from the fact that a baby is dead as a result. If, as Most Rev. Robert C. Morlino asserts, killing babies is always wrong “regardless of circumstances”, then it would be wrong during war.

The argument that abortion is wrong wholly springs from the fact that a baby is dead as a result.

Completely wrong. You have no idea what the catechism of the RCC consists of. Relevant is the principle of double effect. An act can have more than one effect. What matters is the intended effect.

You can not, for instance, in the case of an ectopic pregnancy surgically remove the implanted pre-born child from the fallopian tube. That is a direct abortion and always wrong. A Catholic doctor can treat the emergency by removing a portion of the fallopian tube at the site of implantation. Or the entire tube.

In both cases the pre-born child is killed. But if the intended effect is to treat the mothers condition, and the death of the child is the unintended but foreseeable result, it’s permitted. But abortion, the direct assault on the pre-born child’s life, can not be the treatment. Because abortion is an intrinsic evil. Treating the mother’s condition that would result in both the mother and child dying is not.

Just war doctrine relies on the same principle. What matters is the intent. A war of aggression is an intrinsic evil as that is a direct assault on innocent life.

A war against an aggressor intended to a stop to an intrinsic evil is permitted, as long as it meets the conditions for the use of force (i.e. it can’t result in an evil greater than the evil to be opposed). That’s true even though it will result in dead babies. That’s just a fact of life; it is a predictable, foreseeable, but unintended secondary effect of the decision to go to war.

“If, as Most Rev. Robert C. Morlino asserts, killing babies is always wrong “regardless of circumstances”, then it would be wrong during war.”

Michael – You would be right if that is what Rev. Morlino asserted, but as you know, he only asserted that abortion is always wrong. If you stick to the quotes and facts instead of fabricating things you want to hear, you will make better arguments.

daley, I beg to differ. If he stuck to the facts, such as the actual quotes as well as the catechism of the RCC instead of mangling them, he wouldn’t make better arguments. The truth is he wouldn’t have an argument to make.

If Mz Fluke hadn’t pushed herself onto the public stage, and made herself subject to Sullivan, she would have legal recourse.
Now, people are just making reasonable, logical, interpretations of the words that came our of her own mouth.Absent Malice, she has no case; therefore (as we have seen) no case has been filed, nor will it.
I imagine the last thing she, and her fiance, wish to undergo, would be an extensive discovery process.

1) Something like a right to have arms is unnecessary, since weapons can be built anyway.

2) Something like a right to have arms is useless, as rebels can only hope to challenge a government through outside help or defections, combined with maybe a threat of outside intervention by a superior military power if the government goes too far, since the arms (and air force!) a government can have is so much beyond superior to what ordinary people can hope to possess.

Sammy – I think that you can build a militia with your mind, when you aren’t using it to split atoms.

The problem is that you can’t create a logical, authoritative, historical, or accurate argument for the right to keep arms being a collective right instead of an individual right no matter how many times you keep claiming it as unsupported fact.